Elections are safety valves for disgruntled voters Re: “Who is afraid of the Repeal Amendment?” Jan. 3 As bad as things are in the federal government, all the Repeal Amendment would do is to further pit one group of elected officials against another, both of whom are elected by the same constituents.
While Randy Barnett points out the “safety valve” for the proposed amendment (that Congress could simply re-enact anything repealed), people unhappy with acts of Congress already have a safety valve. Representatives in Congress are re-elected every two years and senators every six; thus, if you don’t like what your federal representative is doing, vote in someone new to represent you.
The real question left unanswered is why state and federal legislators are at such odds with one another. Perhaps what is needed is not a mechanism for states to repeal federal legislation but a serious examining of the voting process that allows members of Congress to hold on to seats even when they’re seriously out of touch with their constituents.
Paaqua Grant
Arlington
Modern-day Wycliffe needed to translate congressional bills
John Wycliffe (1324-1384) led the movement that produced the first widespread version of an English Bible. After his death, the Council of Constance ordered his grave opened, his body burned as a heretic and the ashes scattered.
Is there a congressman or senator who seeks a similar distinctive mark in history beyond a name on a post office? Congressional bills are unintelligible to all but a handful of congressional monks. Leading a movement to produce bills and laws that are easier to read and understand will take the dedication of a Wycliffe and his followers, some of whom were burned at the stake.
State legislatures long ago abandoned the unreadable bill language still used by Congress. Congress does not even try. As James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 62, “It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
Robert Potts
Alexandria
Proposed constitutional amendment targets congressional exemptions
The governors of 35 states have filed lawsuit against the federal government for imposing unlawful burdens upon them. It only takes 38 states to convene a Constitutional Convention to consider a proposed 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
“Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the senators and/or representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to the senators and/or representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.”
We have been too complacent. Many citizens have no idea that self-serving members of Congress retire with the same pay after only one term and specifically exempt themselves from many of the laws they’ve passed. The latest is an exemption from the health care reform.
Al Eisner
Silver Spring
