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Are you as free as you thought?

Published in Blog on January 16, 2019 by Eric Gustafson

A number of years ago, on a cold winter's eve, I was talking to my neighbor from across the street.

We often talked about this or that, but one statement from this conversation has stuck with me ever since. Before I reveal what it is that she said, I need to add a little context.

My neighbor, along with her husband and daughter, had emigrated from St. Petersburg, Russia, some years before. Her daughter was still in high school and was born around the time of the fall of the Soviet Union. 

However, she and her husband had been born under Communism in the city of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). It is within this context that a better understanding of the night in question lends its weight.

During the course of our conversation, politics arose, as it often did, and I was stunned by what she said.

“You Americans like to talk about your freedoms," she said. "You have more laws and rules telling you what you can and cannot do than we ever had under the Soviet system.”

The night air suddenly grew colder and I was left with in a conundrum. What was I to make of this statement and what does that say about the United States? Was I as free as I had always thought?

Ask yourself if you are as free as you thought. The answer may surprise and shock you.

Would you believe that during any given day, you are breaking three federal laws? How is this possible? The answer is not easy to delineate. Because of the complexity and scope of the “law” that we are subject to each day, the vast majority of the time we are unaware of our crimes committed.

To begin to answer this fundamental question, let's start at the beginning: an idea. Many may remember our civics class and learned the parliamentary proceedings of how a bill becomes law.

However, this process is a little more involved than we were taught, or at least remember. A bill springs forth from an idea, whether from a Congressional member, a group, or a single citizen (the merits of the mind whence it came can be debated at another time).

Once a bill is conceived, it requires the proper legislative language be drafted, a sponsor from a member is required, and they in turn begin the process of wooing other members to co-sponsor the bill as a sign of support.

Constituents may also begin to build their own broad support by courting groups and organizations and convincing them of a vested interest in what the bill is trying to accomplish. Once sufficient support is built it will be assigned a legislative number and read to the Congressional Committee that has jurisdiction within the confines of the United States Codes.

The purpose of the committee is to flesh out the merits of the bill by means of research and debate. A subcommittee begins the process of evaluation and debate. If the subcommittee deems it ready, it is passed along to the full committee. At any point during this process, changes can be made and eventually it may or may not come to a vote to move it to the next level: the House or Senate floor. It could also be voted to remain within the committee for further review.

Once it is introduced to the respective chamber's floor, further debate takes place with the entirety of the members where changes and amendments are put forth. A vote may or may not be made to pass it, or it can be sent back to committee for further review.

If the bill does pass the floor of the chamber where it originated, it is sent to the other chamber, and the process begins all over again. After that chamber adds its changes and amendments, it is sent back to the original chamber.

It is at this point that the two bodies move the bill to a joint committee to hammer out the differences and produce a bill that both parties agree to and another full vote is taken and a bill has been passed on to the President.

The President has four options once a bill is at his desk: the two most common are an outright veto, or he can sign the bill into law. He can also choose to do nothing and after ten days if the Congress is still in session the bill automatically becomes law. He may also use the pocket veto by doing nothing, and the bill dies if Congress adjures within ten days of giving him the bill.

Now, for those of you still with me you may be asking (or cursing), “How does this begin to answer the question of freedom?” It lays the foundation for what is to follow, because although a bill formulated in Congress and signed by the President is in fact law, there is more to the story and one that has far more reaching affects on our lives.

Once a law is passed, it then must be implemented. This is where things get even more complicated, because the new law passes into the hands of the bureaucracy. Each law falls within a specific area that is controlled by an agency, or some other governing body, which processes the procedural measures to implement that law.

These are the regulations that also carry the force of law beyond what has been passed by Congress. They are the rules set forth by which the governing agencies are to follow and we are also to follow. Simply put, regulations are the nuts and bolts of the law.

Is that it, are we now at the end? Not quite. Each law passed can be subject to interpretation by the courts due to legal challenges and although they do not write legislation, their decisions do in fact have the weight of law.

Their decisions then become “case law” or “common law.” This, as you should already surmise, is not straightforward or fast, because these decisions follow a path from lower courts to ever higher courts and may end up in the Supreme Court, each ruling adding to the complexity and precedence to other similar rulings in the present and future. This is an over simplified explanation, but hopefully gives some insight to the process.
 
Now, are we done? Sorry, we have a bit more to cover. The President has powers to institute law by way of Executive Order, Presidential Memoranda, and Presidential Proclamations.

An Executive Order is away for the President to direct and manage how the federal government works and must be numbered and published in the Federal Register. A Presidential Memoranda is used to direct the actions of the federal government and do not need to be published like an executive order. A Presidential Proclamation is a written statement to the public concerning policy important to the President as is usually just symbolic and generally not enforced as law.

That is it in a nutshell. But did it answer our question? Are you as free as you thought? Remember, this is only at the federal level and this was boiled down (believe it or not). There is still the state and local levels that have not been addressed and will not be covered here.

So, how many federal laws are there? No one knows! To find these laws/codes the government is mandated to daily update them daily and print each in the annual Code of Federal Regulations. To help narrow it down, they have an index, which is 1260 pages and covers 200 volumes that--as of 2012--contain 174,577 pages. The criminal code alone is over 4,500 pages, as best can be found.

Let's not forget a new legislative body just took the oath, and you can count on more laws being passed.

So, are you as free as you thought?

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