Legislative Intent

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

Proposal:

The process of passing laws should start with a vote on the intent of the proposed law or resolution.

The approved intent must appear between the title and the body of the draft and final law or resolution.

Intent:

To improve the legislative process by clearly indicating the intent of a proposed law and by voting separately on the intent of the law before voting on the law itself, so that it’s clear whether legislators are in support of the law’s intent and therefore a subsequent opposition vote to the law itself could be reversed by negotiating or revising the implementation, or whether legislators are in opposition to the law’s intent and therefore would vote against the law itself and are not open to negotiation on implementation details.

To improve a judge’s ability to interpret the law by clearly indicating the intent of a proposed law so that if the body of the law is vague or does not cover circumstances before the court, the judge can still apply and uphold the intent of the law.

Discussion:

The process of passing laws should start with a vote on the intent of the proposed law.

If the intent vote doesn’t pass, the waste of a significant effort to write a detailed law that won’t pass can be avoided. If the intent vote passes, then legislators can proceed to negotiate and write the details of the law in accordance with the approved intent. The approved intent will be incorporated into an intent section which will appear between the title of the law and the body of the law in the detailed draft and in the final bill.

Without an intent vote, it’s not clear if a failure to pass a law or referendum is due to a lack of support for the intent of the law or a lack of support for the proposed implementation.

When legislators vote on a law and when citizens vote on a referendum, they vote on it as it is written. They might agree with some of it but strongly disagree with some implementation detail and vote against it for that reason. Voting on the intent first means that if a subsequent vote on the implementation fails it’s because people don’t want that implementation, and lawmakers should try again. Alternatively, voters can be presented with a a set of proposed implementations to select a winner, the way people vote for candidates in an election. This is a useful technique when lawmakers cannot come an agreement on an implementation — they let the voters decide (either the people in a referendum, or the full body of legislators).

When a dispute comes before a judge, the judge must ascertain the facts and determine how the law applies to the circumstances in question. Sometimes the law isn’t clear and judges must interpret the law. When there is an intent preceding the implementation, it provides judges with context when there is ambiguity in the implementation details, so judges can rule in alignment with the intent of the law.

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