Just Wondering wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:

Just Wondering wrote:

Precisely. If they have to memorize it then they'll have an
incentive
to cut it down to a reasonable size. It's also too massive for
anyone to carry around. If ignorance of the law is no excuse then
the law should be compact enough that one has a reasonable hope of
actually knowing all of it.


How 'bout this instead? Any legislator who wants to pass
a bill has to submit it to a committee of its opponents, who will
prepare a test on its important points. Anyone who wants to vote
for
the bill has to take and pass the test first.


Nope. Doesn't require an awareness of existing laws.

But it would force them to know exactly what they are voting for,
from the
perspective of people who don't like it. I rather suspect that most
legislators
don't even read many of the bills they vote on, and don't really
know
more than
what the sponsors themselves tell them about a few vague high points
of most bills.

That would be useful in addition to requiring them to know the
existing body of the law.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)