Re: Support the Anti-Scofflaw Regulation

[william sanjour <wsanjour@lincs.net>]

Neil, Bob,

Let me make my position clear.  I'm not advocating that we give up on
laws.  I'm advocating that we make laws smartly.  This means writing
laws which minimize discretionary authority to administrative agencies
and maximize the rights of affected citizens and communities to take
direct action.  In other words, the decision on whether or not a
standard or regulation has been violated should not be left to
politicians (who will use that authority for their own advantage and not
ours) but should be determined by the affected public and the courts. 
Regulatory authorities were invented to be a surrogate for the public's
interest.  Some people think they still are or can be but in fact
politicians and corporations have learned how to take them over to serve
their own purposes a long time ago.  

I do not see this law as any kind of compromise.  A compromise would be
this law plus easy meaningful citizen enforcement provisions.  But I
would be doubious of the mischief that an administration might do with
such discretionary authority.

I do not see this law as being better than no law, I see it as much
worse than no law.  And why would you want to put your faith in an
administration to enforce an anti-scofflaw law when it was the
administration which let the scofflaws scoff the law in the first
place?  When this too doesn't work will we see an anti-anti-scofflaw
law?

Bill Sanjour
http://pwp.lincs.net/sanjour




Neil Tangri wrote:
> 
> Hi Jon,
> 
> I agree with your observations that most of the biggest corporate abusers
> are so tightly locked into the US government that this measure -- or any
> other single measure -- is not going to uproot them. The problem is, with a
> government that is so corrupt, no measure is going to function perfectly.
> So what option do we have? Give up on laws? Clearly, whenever you're
> talking about legislation, you're talking about doing the best you can
> within a compromised situation to make it somewhat less compromised.
> 
> First of all, don't forget that most lawbreaking corporations are not
> Monsanto, RJR or WMX: there are plenty of small, medium and biggish
> companies that routinely violate worker safety laws, environmental
> discharge regulations, fair lending practices, etc. etc. These are the
> companies that threaten most Americans' well-being on a daily basis, and
> they don't have the political clout to buy off the administration. So I
> think this might actually be effective in going after them.
> 
> For the really big ones, of course, we have a problem on a different scale.
> But from my understanding (and I"m not a lawyer), this bill would give us a
> nice big stick with which to go after them. It would make some of the
> revolving door activities in DC not only unethical but actually illegal.
> Now, of course, making a law doesn't mean that it will be enforced; but it
> does raise the costs to the corporations -- and the risks of getting caught.
> 
> As Bill Sanjour says, the best tools are not those wielded by the
> government but by citizens. This isn't such a law, but it may well be a
> stepping stone to that kind of law. If we can establish that the government
> can't do business with lawbreaking corporations, then our next task will be
> to demand that citizens, not government bureaucrats, draw up the list of
> who is a lawbreaker. But we have to take things one step at a time -- all
> laws are imperfect, but we can't just wait around until someone comes up
> with a perfect one. I'm shocked that we got something this good out of this
> administration -- and I think we should make hay while the sun shines.
> 
> Neil