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  • Why are laws so vauge?

    From micky@21:1/5 to All on Sat May 11 14:59:19 2024
    One of the candidates for mayor of Baltimore dropped out of the race a
    few days ago, because he was in 4th place, I suppose, and all are agreed
    that he has to return the money he has not yet spent from the money the
    state of Maryland's election fund gave him to campaign with.

    It might have been 600k total but the amount doesn't really matter.

    All are agreed he has to return the unspent money, but it's debatable,
    they say, if he has to return the money he already spent.

    It seems to me this is one of many cases where the problem should have
    been foreseen and the law written clearly enough that there is no
    debate.

    I believe that no matter how carefully laws are drawn, there will be a
    fine borderline between permitted and not permitted, mostly about
    unforeseen situations, that won't be clear in the law, but so many
    times, the question seems easily foreseeable, at least for those with a
    logical mind.

    Does this problem bother any of you. Do you have any words of
    consolation, or at least explanation, of why even foreseeable questions
    are not dealt with when laws are first written, and we're forced to take
    court time, money, and especially delays?

    --
    I think you can tell, but just to be sure:
    I am not a lawyer.

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  • From Rick@21:1/5 to micky on Sun May 12 10:33:30 2024
    "micky" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

    One of the candidates for mayor of Baltimore dropped out of the race a
    few days ago, because he was in 4th place, I suppose, and all are agreed
    that he has to return the money he has not yet spent from the money the
    state of Maryland's election fund gave him to campaign with.

    It might have been 600k total but the amount doesn't really matter.

    All are agreed he has to return the unspent money, but it's debatable,
    they say, if he has to return the money he already spent.

    It seems to me this is one of many cases where the problem should have
    been foreseen and the law written clearly enough that there is no
    debate.

    I believe that no matter how carefully laws are drawn, there will be a
    fine borderline between permitted and not permitted, mostly about
    unforeseen situations, that won't be clear in the law, but so many
    times, the question seems easily foreseeable, at least for those with a >logical mind.

    Does this problem bother any of you. Do you have any words of
    consolation, or at least explanation, of why even foreseeable questions
    are not dealt with when laws are first written, and we're forced to take >court time, money, and especially delays?


    Well, here is one way to look at it using totally made-up numbers. Suppose
    it takes 10 months and a cost of $1,000,000 to write a perfect law that
    covers every contingency and has no ambiguity or anything that could
    possibly be misleading or require interpretation by the courts. But it
    turns out that it only takes one month at a cost of $100,000 to write a law that is 95% perfect and will cover most, but not all situations. One can perhaps envision a scenario where lawmakers may decide that the large extra cost to go from 95% to 100% perfection in the law just isn't worth it. Obviously these are made-up numbers that don't necessarily reflect exact reality, but I think it summarizes the approach law makers probably take in crafting new laws. They do the best they can to make laws that are comprehensive and meet most cases, but don't feel it is worth the presumed unreasonable effort to try to eliminate all possible loopholes.

    --

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  • From Stan Brown@21:1/5 to Rick on Tue May 14 13:51:40 2024
    On Sun, 12 May 2024 10:33:30 -0700 (PDT), Rick wrote:

    It seems to me this is one of many cases where the problem should have
    been foreseen and the law written clearly enough that there is no
    debate.

    Well, here is one way to look at it using totally made-up numbers. Suppose it takes 10 months and a cost of $1,000,000 to write a perfect law that covers every contingency and has no ambiguity or anything that could
    possibly be misleading or require interpretation by the courts. But it turns out that it only takes one month at a cost of $100,000 to write a law that is 95% perfect and will cover most, but not all situations. One can perhaps envision a scenario where lawmakers may decide that the large extra cost to go from 95% to 100% perfection in the law just isn't worth it. Obviously these are made-up numbers that don't necessarily reflect exact reality, but I think it summarizes the approach law makers probably take in crafting new laws. They do the best they can to make laws that are comprehensive and meet most cases, but don't feel it is worth the presumed unreasonable effort to try to eliminate all possible loopholes.

    Other considerations:

    1. I doubt it is even possible to craft a perfect law. Aside from
    normal human fallibility, laws don't get a whole lot of scrutiny.
    Many legislators tend to vote as they're told to, whether by their
    party's leader or by their staff. (Highly controversial bills, or an
    individual legislator's pet project, may get more scrutiny, but I
    think those are the exception. It's the Pareto principle: 90% of the
    scrutiny goes to 10% of the bills.)

    2. Legislatures, especially Congress, over time have moved more and
    more toward passing laws without a lot of specifics. It is left to administrative agencies and ultimately to the courts to figure out
    what the legislature wanted to accomplish.

    --
    Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
    Shikata ga nai...

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