How Many Laws Will We Get From The Legislature This Year?

Article VI Section 16 of the Utah Constitution is a keeper. I hope we never amend it. It says, in part, “no annual general session of the Legislature may exceed 45 calendar days, excluding state holidays and federal holidays...” Whoever had the foresight to make that a part of the constitutional mandate here in the state is a genius. It says that the legislature has a finite amount of time in which they can construct regulations to regulate our lives.

The 2022 legislative session produced a whooping 513 bills. Multiply that number by nine (taking out weekends, holidays and the like plus 45 is a little more than a tenth of the year) that means our legislative body could be on pace to produce some 4,617 bills if they met year round. That would be over 12 bills a day. I just shuddered a lot.

Now you could be thinking that this is some anti government, anti law rant and that is not the case, but as I wrote earlier, I think we need to have more than a knee jerk reaction to when we see someone else doing something we don't like one of our out of the holster reactions is “there ought to be a law.” In other words I don't like what you are doing so I'm going to make someone else make you stop what I don't like. Or we could face the situation directly.

Too often, I feel, we look to government entities to be the playground monitor to make sure no one gets hurt in the sandbox. But getting an occasional knee scrape may be just what we need to build character and courage and the gumption to get up and play some more. I don't know if you have ever had this experience, but have you ever seen when a child falls or gets a cut and they start to cry but stop crying when no one reacts? I have seen that, and while I'm not advocating ignoring children playing, more often than not, they will get up, move on and get back in the game.

Maybe we grownups should do the same. Try an experiment. Right now Google the phrase “what laws are you breaking right now.” I think you'll be stunned, it turned up hundreds if not thousands of results. I liked this link from Money Talk News which said that fibbing about the weather could be a crime, unless you're the National Weather Service where we've come to expect it.

I wish the legislature would take in to consideration before they meet these words from Frederic Bastiat: “Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of someone else.” We will see what the legislature comes up with in this year's general session. Another 500 bills? 600? I don't know, but I am counting the days until the last day of the general session for this year. Thankfully, so is the Utah Constitution.

By the way to see some laws on the books in Utah that we might be able to live without keep scrolling, and if you know of any others let me know by commenting of hit me up on our app.