Kyle Markley, candidate for Oregon Secretary of State

Kyle Markley
for Oregon Secretary of State

The State of Minnesota repealed over a thousand laws in its 2014 session in a serious effort to improve that state's laws. Minnesota repealed many obsolete, redundant, or incomprehensible laws and regulations, while also simplifying tax compliance and reducing waiting times to receive permits. This was excellent work, and it should be done here in Oregon, too.

There is already too much law, much of it is badly-written, and some of it is inoperative because it has been struck down by courts. Laws need maintenance like everything else, and a major part of a legislator's job should be to improve existing law. Most legislators just want to add law — hopefully law with their name on it — but have little interest in fixing or repealing bad laws. Not me! I will be happy to clarify ambiguous law, repeal unconstitutional law, and make fixes to laws to adapt to changing technology and to circumstances that the original drafters did not foresee.

Maintenance of laws should be an ongoing, continuous process, not a once-in-a-lifetime event. To help this occur, I believe that laws should automatically sunset (be self-repealing) some number of years after they are initially passed. As the law's sunset date approaches, the legislature would be motivated to reexamine the purpose and results of the law, decide whether to renew it, and consider improvements.

© Kyle Markley
Libertarian candidate for Oregon Secretary of State
Kyle Markley for Oregon on Facebook