State laws have their place. But state rules that grow out of those laws constitute another layer of regulation. The Legislature is setting up a way to weed out the ones that they think are smothering business development.
Rules and regulations issued by state agencies take up thousands of pages and volumes of binders and some of the rules are obsolete, no longer necessary, overbroad, burdensome—think of all the things that rules can be that aren’t good. Those rules are the target of Senator Bob Dixon of Springfield, who wants all 65-hundred of those rules evaluated on five-year cycles.
His bill, which has been sent to the House by the Senate, would require agencies to review one-fifth of their rules each year and notify the joint legislative committee on administrative rules which ones should be renewed and which ones can be discarded or amended.
The House has been working on a bill that eliminates all rules every ten years unless they’re specifically reinstituted. Supporters of Dixon’s Senate bill say that would be chaotic.
AUDIO: Dixon, Keaveny debate 21:45
