One Page Laws

Philosophy according to Jack

One Page Laws

Write it again

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            I once read an account of how former GE Chairman Jack Welch demanded one page memos.

            At the time, our farming operation was ranked among the bigger operations and I liked staff meetings about like Mr. Welch so I instituted a similar process. Communicate frequently and ongoing, but do it with simplicity. I don’t recollect sending anything back if it exceeded the single page as Welch would have done, but the point remains similar.

            “If you can’t get it on a single piece of paper … rewrite it.”

            Furthermore, “If it takes more than a single piece of paper, you don’t have a single point but, rather, multiple points … break it down to the single point of emphasis.”

            Maybe we didn’t swing a loop quite as big as Mr. Welch’s, but we left an impression and we ran a good business. After all these years, I would judge our leadership approaches in lock step with his first six leadership secrets.

            History does matter

            The size and rate of growth of our government is … ungovernable. With all the words and gnashing of teeth, every representative that has been sent into the black hole of Washington must receive a failing grade in his or her success of halting the assault on our treasury. Objective Americans who will be expected to capitalize resolution of this pending cataclysm are being treated like subjects rather than the sovereign citizens they are.

            The confusion is made worse by the jigsaw puzzle legislative actions that are being bundled and cast to the cabinet level secretaries for regulatory authorship and implementation. By their shear size, they are untenable, but when the politics of the managing agency is morphed into the administrative process, they become weapons against the citizenry. They are debacles, and they are an insult to our foundation.

            The discovery of the size of the staff in the original Congress makes all this more indefensible. There were nine employees, and four of them were chaplains.

            There is no way that the Affordable Health Care Act would be the paper giant it is if the Congressmen and Senators elected to represent the folks had to pen the document themselves. In the framework of the original Congress, they would have done that very thing. The permanent record would have been rendered to a recording secretary, but the genesis of the bill would have come from the mind … and the pen of the originator.

Staff … the sound of that word should make every one of us shudder. It has become a matter of automatic recourse for city councils, county commissions, state legislators, and, of course, congressional representatives.

            “We will refer the matter to staff,” is the mirrored byline. 

            That interpretation is straight forward. The grunt work will be parlayed away and the elected kahunas will make the learned decisions. Well, it is time to fire the staffs and demand the self aggrandized kahunas earn their golden parachutes. It is time to seek constitutional commitments to the nation and that starts with statesmanship and courage. It must proceed by acting the part of the trusted representative of the sovereign citizens who cast their votes for ethical representation.

            The procedure for legislative action must also be altered. Multiple thousand page bills are unacceptable. They are shameful. They are not the products of competent elected officials. They are complicit wish lists. They are the creation of political parties and special interests that maneuver and conspire with staff to assemble and construct monstrosities of civic molestation. They are being driven purposely to levels of confusion and complexity.   

            One page, public servants

            A suggestion was once made to a key aid of the chairman of an important natural resource committee by this parched lipped westerner that federal laws should be no more than one page in length. That fellow, who will read this, offered a gracious response, but he and I both know the real truth of his reaction. He had to hold his teeth in and gain control of his breathing before he squared himself and gave his best rendition of cordiality.

“Impossible” was his abbreviated answer.

            The matter, though, is foundationally impaired. Laws must be considered with constitutional unity, reduced to simplicity, and transcribed in a clear and concise manner. The human interpretation will confuse the issue enough for debate.

            Federal laws should be reduced to one page.

They should be written in a manner that any citizen can understand, and they should be authored by the elected servants who pledged to defend that Constitution upon receiving that majority vote from the folks back home.

 Pretty simple isn’t it?

An example is the Copyright Act of 1790. It remains an important piece of legislation. It was approved for presidential signature on May 31, 1790. Printed on today’s electronic equipment, it is nearly two pages in length. After reading it, Jack Welch would have rejected and sent it back to the sender on the basis of confusion. I would have pondered it, similarly.

“Write it again.”

An example of confusion is the continued repetition of what it is protecting, “maps, charts, books, or books already made and composed”. After the first reference, it should have been tagged henceforth as “protected subjects”.

The Constitution provides adequate authority to police such action. If it exceeds a single page, the president should refuse to sign it. Upon three iterations of attempting to sign, and it still does not meet standards, the bill should be scrapped. It was not assembled with adequate simplicity.

Reversing tyranny

What the Constitution didn’t delegate to the federal government  is the business of the states and the people. The Tenth Amendment gave us that authority. If the states want cumbersome laws to fight in court, even two pages long, it is the prerogative of the folks managing the course of state actions to make such determinations.

The point remains the same. If the complexity of laws is so great page after page of details are necessary, they exceed the reasonableness of simplicity and shouldn’t be undertaken by elected servants. Complexity should be reserved for the sovereign citizen. It is there the genius of the individual overcomes the complexity of issues.

The Bible presents the most brilliant example. At issue are the Ten Commandments. When Moses came off the mountain with the single page tablet inscribed with the commandments, GOD considered his actions. In his infinite wisdom, HE sent word back to angelic staff.

“Rewrite it,” HE commanded.

The large font, one page directive came back as two sentences. The words were:

“Love the Lord your GOD with all your heart and with all you soul and with all your mind, and … Love your neighbor as yourself”.

The point is abundantly clear. If it is good enough for GOD … it is more than good for those who think they are.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “In addition to simplified legislation, Washington staff must be reduced to only those individuals who report to the highest ranking aid to the respective elected officials.”