The incoming House majority has promised to change the way that business is done in Washington — to look out for the average American and for small business. It faces one of its first opportunities to do so this month, when the new members select the proposed rules that will govern the House. If the House wants to show that it is not going to perpetuate business as usual in Washington, a good first step would be to adopt a rule requiring every bill that proposes or modifies a federal crime to be referred to the House Judiciary Committee before heading to the floor. This simple, common-sense change would help to curtail the current crisis in federal criminal law — a crisis resulting from the enactment of hundreds of duplicative and, too often, unconstitutional criminal laws that trap average Americans and hurt small businesses.
It would be reasonable to think that all criminal-law proposals already receive judiciary-committee oversight. But in fact, criminal-law proposals are often introduced in the House, reported to the full body for consideration on the floor, and passed with little or no judiciary-committee oversight.
Continue reading Ed Meese at National Review Online’s The Corner…
