It's time to pass the "Truth in Legislative Labeling Act."
In his 1946 essay, "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell explained:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.
Illustrating this concept, in his classic book 1984, Orwell portrayed a totalitarian state in which the Government's oxymoronic language created false truths: "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery," and "Ignorance is Strength."
The past five years of Republican rule has provided many examples of the use of Orwellian language. But, perhaps the worst of these examples has been the blatant mislabeling of legislative Acts.
Who can forget the "Clear Skies Act of 2003" which was to reduce air pollution controls thus making our skies dirtier or the "Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003" which served to increase logging of forests? Who is not offended by the title of the "Patriot Act"? The popular name for the Act derives from the tortured acronym: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act." The Republicans contrived a name so that its initials would spell "USA PATRIOT" in order to gain a rhetorical advantage in the legislative debate.
It must be emphasized that historically legislation has been appropriately named. Many Acts have been named after their legislative sponsors: e.g., the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. Many other Acts have been given "plain vanilla" names which reflected what the Acts were about: e.g., Federal Meat Inspection Act, Domain Name Piracy Prevention Act, Civil Rights Act, etc.
The misleading conduct by Republicans has now stopped. At least until they get a majority back. But, really, that's not good enough. It's time for the Democrats to show that we differ from the Republicans. That we don't intend to mislead the American public.
We need to pass a law that will be binding not only this Democratically controlled legislature, but future perhaps Republican controlled legislative bodies, that has the following provisions:
(1) Ban future names which are intended to form acronyms (e.g., prevent another USA PATRIOT Act);
(2) Ban any descriptive names that do not gather a three quarters vote in committee or the floor vote (thereby ensuring that names are plain vanilla), with the default in the case no name is deemed acceptable being a title based on the principle sponsors names; and
(3) Selective renaming of past egregiously misleading legistlation (e.g. rename the Patriot Act, rename the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, etc.).
This legislation, of course, would only require a simple majority to pass. Thus, the renaming of past Acts will not be subject to the three quarters vote rule.
And if GW vetos the "Truth in Legislative Labeling Act"?
So much the better. Heh.
The role for the netroots in pushing this kind of legislation is obvious. This is the kind of people powered initiative that is simple, doesn't require fact-finding or extensive hearings, and which, frankly, is exactly the kind of outside the beltway proposal that we should be pushing.
Anyone with me?