Posted by Orin Kerr:
Naming the Patriot Act:
One argument I occasionally hear from opponents of the Patriot Act is
that the Patriot Act was unfairly named. "With a name like Patriot
Act," the arguments runs, "How could anyone vote against it? No one
wanted to be seen as unpatriotic in the weeks after 9/11." The
suggestion seems to be that the Patriot Act's name, or at least the
acronym its name creates, unfairly pressured legislators to vote in
favor it.
There are two significant problems with this argument. The first is
that the name was worked out fairly late in the Congressional
negotiations over the bill, long after it was clear that the bill
would pass. The second problem is that most bills proposed in Congress
have a similar feel-good name. The name of a bill is often used to
articular an argument in favor of the bill, not to reflect accurately
its contents. For example, if someone wants to pass a tax break, the
bill might be named the "Power to the People Act." If someone else
wants to undo tax breaks, the bill might be named the "Freeing Our
Children From The Burdens Of the National Debt Act."
If you doubt this, go over to Congress's [1]Thomas site and check
out the names of some recent bills. I did this a week or two ago; I
entered a query using the keyword "law" to keep it as generic as
possible. (I don't know how the site chooses to order the bills, but I
don't think it matters.) Here are the names of the proposed statutes
that popped up first on the list:
(1) State and Local Law Enforcement Discipline, Accountability, and
Due Process Act of 2003
(2) Preservation of Federalism in Banking Act
(3) UNITE Act
(4) Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act
(5) JTTF Enhancement Act
(6) Federal Law Enforcement Pay and Benefits Parity Act
(7) End Racial Profiling Act
(8) Handgun Licensing Act
(9) Officer Dale Claxton Bulletproof Police Protective Equipment
Act
(10) Equity in Law Enforcement Act
If politicians felt forced to vote in favor of bills because of
their names, then most bills would just have to become law. After all,
how can you be against discipline, accountability, and due process?
How can you be against safety? How can you be against uniting? How can
you be in favor of inequity in law enforcement?
Of course, I recognize that many politicians felt tremendous
pressure to enact some kind of anti-terrorism law in the weeks
following 9/11. But that pressure had nothing to do with name of the
bill.
References
1. http://thomas.loc.gov/
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