In the wake of our editor’s annual rant about not being able to buy cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving, Bob challenged me to make a list of “additional bad laws that should be eliminated”. I was halfway through the list when I realize it might spur some of that awful edge-of-margin discussion. So here’s my top 5 legal frameworks that need to go — what are yours?
— The Governor’s Council. The Senate can and should do this. Why this sinecure?
— County government. Talk about patronage. The state is too densely settled to need this.
— Minimum sentencing. Treating courts like machines makes for good headlines and poor justice, particularly on drug usage.
— Flat income tax. Asking the people who benefit the most from the economy to assume the most responsibility for its continuation is simple justice and self-interest in my book.
— Mourners cannot eat more than three sandwiches at a wake.
There. Can you believe I made it through the whole list without mentioning education? Whoops.
We should just get rid of them. They’re all based on some sort of obsolete religious idea of imposed order and morality anyhow. We should just have private contracts and let people do what they want and solve their disputes themselves.
…is a constitutional body so the Senate can’t just get rid of it. I got slapped around last time I defended the body, but I stand by those earlier comments. Some county offices also still exist even in non-counties thanks to the Constitution.
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p>If you want to list outdated laws, there’s always that prohibition on taking the name of the Lord in vain.
Absolutely, positively. spot on—can you imagine the savings and the streamlining that could be done?
Homestead and mechanic’s liens could stand for some freshening up.
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p>And if I were in a truly reforming mood, I would do away with the registries of deeds in their entirety, as they are an archaic relic. They can be replaced with the nifty system like that used to track UCC financing statements.
and what should be done with them?
Like many of our real estate laws, the mechanics lien statute is set up to create maximum work for real estate lawyers. The law is set up to allow the contractor who works on building or improving real estate to lien the real estate if he is unpaid
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p>It is filled with pointless picky paperwork, and deadlines that come so fast that all but the most sophisticated contractors tend to miss the deadlines.
Lowell Register of Deeds Dick Howe blogged about it.
That sounds like a much needed moderate improvement. However, I don’t see any reason whatsoever to rely on requiring people to file magic forms in order to gain homestead protection. If you (i) own the property and (ii) live in the property as your residence, then you should have the protection. I guess that would give the registries and title examiners less to do.
Dick is one of those dreaded outdated elected Registrars of Deeds! How dare you use his information that he posts on the web?
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p>/snark
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p>Seriously, though, Dtick Howe is a good friend of mine, and he’s done a TON of “cutting edge” stuff with his Registrar office (he’s one of those genuine good public servants). I can’t speak to the rest of the Registrars in the state, but I know he does a lot with his office and tries to push the technical envelop with his colleagues as well.
Interesting note: Dick was one of the first local blogs in the area with his Lowell Deeds blog. (He also runs richardhowe.com as probably most know, which came after LiL.) I started LiL in May 2005, and he was already old hat at it, because a couple years in blog years is like a decade. đŸ™‚
An old ordinance declares goatees illegal unless you first pay a special license fee for the privilege of wearing one in public.
that tops his list, Tyler!
This law is referred to as an “affordable housing” and “anti-snob” law, but the obvious propaganda power of those terms should indicate that it needed some camouflage to get passed. In reality, it does a bad job providing affordable housing, and the people who object to big developments are not snobs! The fact is we need to stop creating suburban car-centric housing and change our strategy into revitalizing cities and towns, and 40B needs to be repealed to stop any more of these developments immediately. We don’t need to know exactly what will replace it, perhaps nothing needs to replace it, perhaps the foreclosure crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble has created enough affordable housing.
It failed.
Lots of people just vote No on ballot questions because they want the leg to do its job. That doesn’t mean they think 40B was a good law. Most voters don’t even know what it is, or what repealing it would mean. They just think repealing laws by ballot question is rash, especially when they don’t know what it does, and it is called an “affordable housing law.” We shouldn’t put any stock in that vote. Or in any ballot question, for that matter.
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p>I guess the people who put the question on the ballot didn’t do a good job explaining why it should be repealed, they made a tactical error trying to go around the legislature instead of going through the legislature via progressive blogs and other grassroots methods.
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p>Did you vote to repeal it, btw?
I voted against repeal because I do want the leg. to do it’s job. However, that in turn is because I don’t feel qualified to render a decision on the merits.
I think you were far from alone in voting No for that reason. If was a more paranoid person, I’d think that maybe the developers and builders and unions and banks put this law up for a vote just so that it would fail to be repealed and then everyone would think that it had to be kept as is. Who the heck DID put it on the ballot? Did they do any pre-polling to make them think they’d win?
…but there are always plenty of complaints about it so the proponents might have thought there was a good shot.
At first glance at least, it would make sense that 40B might push things in the other direction. If you want non-car-centric cities, you need density, if you want density, you need more buildings. Regulations that discourage people from building are the enemy of walkable neighborhoods.
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p>Which isn’t to say that 40B is always used in this way, if people use it to build in the middle of nowhere then THAT encourages sprawl obviously, and I don’t know the exact numbers as to where 40B buildings are generally placed. But there are plenty of cities and towns where the affordability requirement hasn’t been met which have access to public transportation and walkable neighborhoods. If 40B can be used (and it is) to build new developments in Cambridge or Brookline or whatever, that is a very good thing from the perspective of moving away from a car-centric housing pattern.
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p>There’s tons of laws on the books which encourage car-centric housing patterns: like zoning regulations requiring minimum parking and such. Those should be gotten rid of. And maybe we should modify 40B so that it can’t be used to build in the “middle of nowhere.” But to repeal it entirely when it has so much potential to actively encourage dense neighborhoods seems weirdly placed.
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p>And the affordable housing itself is a nice perk too.
If someone has access to data on how often 40B is used in built-up areas, as opposed to undeveloped areas, it would be useful in this discussion. My suspicion is that it does have more use in suburbia.
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p>All the 40B projects that I have been made aware of have been on undeveloped land, and all have been away from existing public transportation (in some cases, bus routes may have been expanded to serve the new housing, but that doesn’t happen quickly.) I am much more likely to hear about suburban projects, since that’s where I live, but I wonder what incentives there are in 40B for a developer who wants to build in a dense area. Presumably such an area would already be zoned for multifamily dwellings, and I suspect there’s not much reason for a developer there to make units below market rate.
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p>Also note that there’s nothing in 40B that says the units have to be in multifamily buildings. The law was used to build some single-family homes not far from me; their lots are smaller than normal for the area, and so the resulting density is somewhat greater, but the development is not that different from nearby pre-zoning neighborhoods in that regard.
It’s true that “Regulations that discourage people from building” are the enemy of walkable neighborhoods sometimes, but it’s also true that regulations which require particular kinds of buildings (those with large sidelots, those with lots of parking, or those which result in many trips in and out of the lot, thereby interfering with pedestrians walking by) can be the enemy of walkable neighborhoods too. Not to mention allowing things like industrial sites, which tend to be not-so-nice to walk by in the first place.
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p>P.S. I’m pretty sure Cambridge has met it’s 40B threshold, a quick google search didn’t yield helpful results though. Brookline is in the 8.something range, but struggles politically because the Coolidge Corner local activists are BANANAs, and the South Brookliners don’t want any development which would result in even a single more child attending the public schools. Development, as a result, is a square peg in a round hole, and IMO Brookline is begging for a big ugly 40B project requiring massive teardowns, etc, precisely because Brookline won’t allow good development with 15%-20% affordable as a component, thereby getting Brookline closer to the 10% threshold.
The repeal of alcohol sales tax was a bad law, because alcohol is one of the few obvious luxury goods where rich people spend many times more than poor people for essentially the same product, which also happens to be totally unnecessary. It makes no sense that a poor alcoholic who puts a pocketful of change together to buy some vodka pays the the same amount of tax as the guy buying a big bottle of Grey Goose for $200 dollars. That is a Bad Law.
At least when we put it back, we have a chance to remove the earmark for substance abuse programs. The whole point is to raise revenue. We should still fund some substance abuse programs, but independently from however much we take in on alcohol sales. They should be funded from the general fund like everything else.
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p>All earmarked tax revenue is Bad Law.
It seems to me that when the spending is directly related to the tax, as with alcohol abuse & alcohol purchasing, that directed revenue makes sense. However, there are probably very few cases where there is such a direct connection.
There is a wide social cost of alcohol abuse, so it behooves even teetotalers to fund programs to combat alcohol abuse. And, in the other direction, not all purchasers of alcohol require alcohol abuse programs, so they shouldn’t have to support support the programs any more than other residents do. And, there is no reason to think that the cost of abuse programs should be exactly the revenue raised from a sales tax. Either the programs cost more than the revenue, or they cost less than the revenue, so earmarking them together either leaves the programs underfunded or over-funded. That’s true of all earmarked taxes.
Stomv’s favorite law, this one says that we have to take all the money we get from a gas tax and spend it on transportation. That just makes no sense as we transition to a localized sustainable economy. We should be reducing transportation costs, not spending as much as possible on it. If, somehow, we manage to raise the gas tax, we should get rid of that Constitutional Bad Law that says we have to plow it back into more transportation.
I’m relatively indifferent to it, truth be told. In my vision, we’d be spending more on non-auto transportation infrastructure than we spend on all transportation infrastructure now. We’d overhaul the MBTA infrastructure, and expand it — both rail, bus (with busway and BRT and TSP), and ferry. We’d also have much better commuter rail, all the way to Albany. We’d have better local transit elsewhere too — Fall River & New Bedford, Lowell, Springfield, Worcester, Cape Cod, etc. We’d have comprehensive bike lanes. We’d have quality sidewalks, and intersections which wouldn’t require as many as 100 seconds for peds to get a WALK light.
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p>I have no problem spending tons of gas tax money on transportation. I just don’t think we should be spending nearly as much of it on motor vehicle transit, and think we should be spending far more of it on other forms of transit infrastructure.
The state of Maryland has a population of about 5.7 million and an area of 12,407 square miles. In Massachusetts we have about 6.6 million people and an area of 10,555 square miles. They rank 5th in population density, we rank 3rd. We have 392 school districts, with the accompanying superintendents and support staff. Maryland has 24. These superintendents all make six figures. Knock off a couple hundred of them, and you’re talking real money. Same goes for police chiefs, fire chiefs, and town managers.
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p>Having a distinct town government for every thirty square miles in the state made sense in the 17th and 18th centuries when each town was centered around the support of a particular congregational church, and the only overhead has maintaining the church. There was little overhead in the day to day operations of a town in those days. There was some benefit in the 18th and 19th centuries when each town (over a certain population) was given at least one state representative. In this day and age, it’s an expensive anachronism.
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First off all of sabutai’s ideas are great, and sorry Christopher there is no defense of the Governors Council-it hasn’t made sense since we broke away from Britain. Back when the Governor was royally appointed it was one of the few checks on his office, but frankly the State Senate and General Court do a good enough job. Its an anachronism and a symbolically expensive one.
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p>I would agree with County government with the exception that I think court functions are easier within a county and no other state has eliminated counties to the extent we have already. But having a statewide court system would be costly and harder to administer. But certainly no commissioners, treasurers, etc., and Middlesex got rid of them awhile ago. Sheriffs should be appointed, not elected, and that would get rid of a lot of patronage, ditto for clerical and registrar positions. Some counties should also be consolidated (looking at you Dukes, Nantucket and Barnstable!) to account for population.
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p>Consolidating school districts is a good idea on paper but it can lead to a lot of problems. My gf is from Aurora, IL a diverse city socioeconomically and racially, demographically similar to Lowell in many respects, and I noticed that the rich suburb of Naperville and the rich parts of Aurora merged into one district while the poor districts in Aurora merged with poor districts around the city. Had Aurora just kept its own district the funds would have been dispersed more equitably. Also New England has some of the smartest and most representative school committees in the country, most big cities have appointed puppet boards, and most consolidated districts tend to have vastly different needs across the district and can’t function as cohesively as a small committee. School committees and town meetings are quirks about New England and holdovers from our Calvinist forerunners I would heartily hope to retain.
Probation Commissioner O’Brien was appointed. Just sayin’.
When I see “Sheriff”, I think “Wyatt Earp” in the wild west.
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p>What does a Sheriff do in Massachusetts?
Administer the county houses of corrections.
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p>Assist local law enforcement and emergency response when needed.
That is, if we can free up some personnel from their flagging duties.
It is more junior DOC with a few token State Police functions thrown in.
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p>Eliminating the Sheriff’s office would involve consolidation of the state and county correctional systems which is not a bad idea. It would also require doing something about pre-trial detention as that is all county based. This latter part would probably be a little more complicated in that the courts are county based as well.
The sherriffs also serve process — which is to say, deliver legal documents.
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p>You know, “you’ve been served.”
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p>Another group of folks who also serve process in MA: constables.
Suck up as much Homeland Security money for equipment that they don’t need in the least. Like a mobile command unit and boats.
My em (italics tag) worked FINE in the preview, so I thought I was all set. When it was submitted, it now shows as a tag instead of the text being italic. If the tag is not allowed in the title, um…shouldn’t it preview as such? đŸ™‚
The courts were taken away from the counties and consolidated under the state back in the late 1970s.
For example, as a resident of Middlesex I would only be called to jury duty in Middlesex. We also still elect our county court officers even though we are not a county: Clerk of Courts, Register of Probate, District Attorney, Registers of Deeds, High Sheriff
It would be tough to take away the court functions of a county, the AG has enough on her mind without having to deal with all the jobs current DAs have to handle. Consolidating some smaller countries (looking at the Cape and Islands for one), having clerical positions (Register of Prbate, Clerk of Courts, Register of Deeds) appointed rather than elected, merging Sheriffs departments into the State Police with some county differentiation (county based positions perhaps). But DA should still be elected, hard to get rid of that position. Also compared to most states we have the least amount of county government.
…plus the independent city of Baltimore. Those are the school districts. It does create the interesting situation of closing school county-wide on account of snow on one side of the county even if there’s not a flake in sight on the other side. You’ll also have to pry Town Meeting out of some people’s cold dead hands.
It’s a lot easier to find out whether or not the schools are closed, though. Listening to the long lists of cities and towns that are closing for snow is a cherished part of the ritual of a Massachusetts snow storm.
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p>I grew up in Maryland (Montgomery County), and I think the Maryland approach is, ultimately, far superior to what we’re doing here.
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p>The resulting tax policies work better as well. The property tax in Maryland is mostly for water and sewer, while the county tax (that pays for schools, police, and fire) is a surtax on the state income tax.
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p>The tax burden is largely shifted from (regressive) property taxes to far more progressive income taxes.
If you’re going to toss a 4 at me, at least tell us where I’m factually incorrect, or what exactly about my comment needs improvement. If you simply disagree, then add to the conversation.
We have one football team, one baseball team, one hockey team (Hartford Whalers became Carolina Hurricanes in 1997), and one basketball team. Who’s kidding who? We should consolidate the six New England states into one state of New England, and do away with five redundant state governments and 10 Senators and their staffs. We’d still have more Senators per person than California (which really should become Two States).
As soon as North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Nebraska become one state.
but that’s nitpicking… deal!
so deals off until further notice
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p>2. Right again. We’ve already made good progress in abolishing a fair amount of county gov’t. There are parts of the state where regional cooperation is a very good idea, but I’m not sure that the formal county government structure adds any value.
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p>3. I don’t like mandatory minimums. I do like sentencing guidelines, if they are done right. That’s a very big topic.
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p>4. Clearly the right thing to do. Unfortunately, requires a constitutional amendment which has failed several times. I wonder whether Governor Patrick will make any effort to pursue this. It would be a huge achievement if he did.
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p>5. Heh. No argument there.
At the federal level Senators often play politics with nominations of judges to get what they want on other things. Putting this in a separate body prevents that. Besides, no-one has ever really demonstrated the harm. It doesn’t cost enough to count, though I would reduce compensation to stipend levels and have them meet at a time that doesn’t restrict other jobs. Besides I for one simply LIKE the ancient traditions and heritage of this fair Commonwealth, and the Governor’s Council makes us not quite unique (NH and ME also have one.), but different.
But we’ve been over this before, and I see no reason to revisit the issue in detail.
The Federal Senate has certainly shown us the sort of shenanigans that can happen with that. But having the job be done by people elected by an electorate who has no fucking idea who they are is perhaps the worst possible scenario. Elections can only work if voters can get a sense of what the politicians stand for. And of course, using elections to insulate people from politics doesn’t actually make sense.
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p>I’d say the main choices should be between letting the General Court do it (Senate in particular or whatever), or letting the Governor’s Council just be an appointed position, both of which have their charms. The status quo has very little going for it.
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p>And that reminds me: our state legislature is called the General Court. That’s a pretty fun anachronism in of itself.
…did have judicial functions in colonial times, until separation of powers became all the rage. If people paid attention there are ways of finding out what the Governor’s Council does. Incumbents and challengers were out in force this past year campaigning with everyone else. It is a bit of a vicious cycle though and candidates do get frustrated by the lack of attention they get from the press and public. If they are going to continue to confirm judges they do need to be separately elected rather than appointed.
In addition to our three County Comissioners, the Assembly of Delegtes is a county-wide elected body (1 per town) for regional cooperation. It supervises the Cape Cod Commission and the Cape Light Compact (the only co-op for residential electric pruchase in the state). they are most likely the body through which county-wide wastewater and sewering will be done, sort of like an MWRA but as a department not a stand-alone. Our Sheriff runs the Barnstable County House of Correction, and handles E-911 dispatching for all the police departments – which is a good thing, as a toruist on ‘Pine Street’ in ‘Hyannis’ might not know he’s really on another Pine St. in Marstons Mills. As far as jury duty goes – does somebody in Lowell want to be assigned to Orleans District court at random? That’s why you get summoned to the local, not state wide.
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p>Our county government is about the ONLY way to foster regionalization and cooperation. We use it, you didn’t, leave us alone.
A Republican defending unnecessary layers of government with the attendant jobs, perks, pensions, and all the rest of it. Duly noted for future reference. đŸ˜€
Republicans are generally not opposed to local government.
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p>As between local government and the state government, Republicans would prefer a larger, more powerful local government, and a smaller weaker state government, with far fewer state agencies.
Because the reality is they favor an expanded federal government and larger budget deficits, based on their votes.
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p>Cato:
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p>Maybe some other Republicans.
…the constitutional prohibition on progressive income tax as an example of a bad law.
to see it, as I thought it was a list of things that are archaic or vestigial and could be universally acknowledged to be dumb, like the sabbath-protecting blue laws.
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p>Instead, it is a partisan wish list.
Number four on his list.
I was skimming to fast and looking for different words.
A great way to keep kids off bikes by forcing them to wear a bulky, uncomfortable helmet. No matter how hard I tried to get my son to put one on, by fixing and adjusting and buying multiple styles, he would frustratingly tell me that it felt like it was choking him, that it was uncomfortable and he hated it. So therefore, my son will not ride a bicycle. A huge loss of one of the greatest joys of childhood.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes….
It would be helpful to have more details.
They’re more comfortable, maybe a little less safe, but not nearly as bulky. Same is true for the skull cap style motorcycle helmets.
… is the Ohio law that bans whaling… wait for it… on Sunday only.
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p>All seriousness aside, the recurring theme amongst the responses here is the constricting nature of the state constitution and so I say (and have said before) let’s toss it and start anew. Sit down and write a whole new one. I have a funny feeling that the current probationers in office wouldn’t object at this particular time and place.
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p>Here’s what I’d like to see in a new constitution:
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p>Absolute ban on ‘initiative petitions’ and ‘ballot questions’.
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p>Enumeration of specific rights like privacy, professional confidentiality, trial by jury, etc. Specific language that bans ‘mandatory minimums’, term limits and other abominations.
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p>Multiple Lt Governors, one each for existing ‘cabinet’ and/or other exec office administrative leadership positions like AG, Sec of State, Treasurer. etc… Round robin selection of succession for Governor, Senate seats and US HoR seats, based on vote count at time of election. Elections of Lt Govs off year of Governors election.
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p>Bicameral legislature of equal sizes, one house chosen by direct representation and the other by proportional representation. Number of reps per population to be determined to meet a 1 rep per 100K ratio. (under current population this would be between 60 and 70 reps.
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p>Enumeration of the specific ability of the government to tax without specific language regarding methodology (flat tax, progressive, etc… )
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…though I’m not sure I agree on all of them. We may need to call a Constitutional Convention to clean up some of the redundancy, but I would not want a brand new document. I like having the bragging rights that we operate under the longest existing Constitution in the world.
That was probably the best idea and the sentencing reform. The LT Gov and Leg ideas seem a bit too radical.
MBL Ch. 272 CRIMES AGAINST CHASTITY, MORALITY, DECENCY AND GOOD ORDER has a bunch of good stuff that we could get rid of. Three months in prison for fornication? Thankfully the fine alternative fine is only $30.
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p>Other gems include:
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p>Section 26. Resorting to restaurants or taverns for immoral purposes,
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p>Section 63. Whoever, … roves about from place to place begging, or living without labor or visible means of support, shall be deemed a tramp.
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p>Section 68. A person known to be a pickpocket, thief or burglar, if acting in a suspicious manner around any steamboat landing, railroad depot, or any electric railway station, or place where electric railway cars stop to allow passengers to enter or leave the cars, banking institution, broker’s office, place of public amusement, auction room, store, shop, crowded thoroughfare, car or omnibus, the dwelling place of another, or at any public gathering or assembly, shall be deemed a vagabond, and shall be punished by imprisonment in the house of correction for not less than four nor more than twelve months.
There was a bill a couple of years ago – called something like Abolishing Antique Laws – and I think the fornication penalty was stripped.
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p>I would find you the link, but I cannot on the sucky new web site.
I can’t find it in the Session Laws either. Many of the provisions of Ch. 272 are actually listed as repealed. others are superceded by later laws or are simply unenforceable.
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p>I am quite sure that anyone trying to prosecute someone under the “Vagabond” statute would find it a violation of due process. Similarly, the statute against the sale of contraception still appears in 272 but again, is clearly unenforceable.
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Which aren’t found online, but in your local law library. (I’m only telling you where they can be found, not defending why they are there, so don’t “4” me…)
Glad to see that someone else hates the new General Laws website, like I do.
There’s really no excuse for this website, especially because the old one worked reasonably well.
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p>If you’re wondering, like I was, how “Kayak Safety” got to be on the “Most Popular” list on the lefthand side, it’s because that search includes all the times that the work “Kayak” OR the word “Safety” appears in the General Laws or pending bills or elsewhere inside the website.
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p>Sums it up for me.
Some wet-behind-the-ears techie who never had a real job probably thought that this was a real improvement over the existing site. God bless his/her heart.
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p>BTW Senate President Murray and Speaker Deleo, fix this abomination now! You’ve both been respectfully notified.
At least we can’t call you a tramp apparently haha
I love the list and agree with all of your positions. If only this state was run by regular BMG contributors it would be an Eden.
a major revamp of all of our ridiculous liquor laws. Like getting rid of the requirement that the legislature approve new liquor licenses in individual towns, banning the idea of a “dry town”, and doing away with the Boston Licensing Board and the caps on liquor licenses in Boston (and any other municipality that has them).
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p>Also, allow direct shipments of wine. You may remember that the law passed by the legislature a few years ago was found unconstitutional and bills to fix it have been languishing at the state house for a while.
low information citizen on County law and Governors council. I can see some theoretical check&balance benefit in government redundancy. I dont feel strongly about these two layers one way or the other.
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p>minimum sentencing and flat tax I would get rid of.
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p>I think 3 sandwiches is plenty–lock up the gluttons in the county jail to serve a minimum sentence