Posts Tagged ‘legislature’

Lowering the Bar “Best of 2009”

Kevin Underhill rounds up four amusing miscellanies at his excellent site. From the fourth:

In June, a committee of the Oregon Legislature stuck some language into a bill that would (I think) have briefly redefined “no” as “yes.” Allegedly, Democrats were trying to head off an initiative they feared Republicans would later put on the ballot, asking voters to reject a spending measure. The bill provided that a vote to reject the measure would be counted as a vote to adopt it:

A measure referred to the people by referendum petition may not be adopted unless it receives an affirmative majority of the total votes cast on the measure rejecting the measure. For purposes of this subsection, a measure is considered adopted if it is rejected by the people.

The bill was amended again a few days later to remove the controversial language, after it became public.

P.S. And another installment missed above (“We are all tarnished by your stupidity.”)

Divorce law in the Northeast

Prompted by our post of yesterday about Virginia lawyer-legislators, commenter Hans Bader at his own blog nominates New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey as examples of how bad matrimonial law can get: “the more lawyers are in a state legislature, the more unfair a state’s divorce laws tend to be”. (OpenMarket.org., Jan. 2). Plus: our family law archives are here.