Paul Tuns, Review:
Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law
by Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze (Harper, $39.50, 291 pages)
In Over Ruled, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and his former clerk Janie Nitze, make the case that there are way too many laws and regulations that carry criminal punishments in the United States, and that this excess is a threat to rule of law and civic trust. The authors profile the lives ruined or sidetracked by costly and lengthy ordeals in the U.S. justice system after breaking what are often unclear, unknown or petty laws enforced by a bureaucracy unbound by accountability for its actions.
Some of the cases explored by Gorsuch and Nitze are laughable, such as the hoops that a magician had to jump throw in order to have a rabbit in his show – disaster contingency plans, signage that notifies users (that is, the magician) which side of the rabbit’s cage is the top (er, the one with the handle). Others are tragic, such as when the city of Philadelphia ended its contract with Catholic Children’s Services to place foster children because the agency did not use same-sex couples, thus depriving foster children a family to stay with and foster parents the opportunity to care for children from broken homes and abusive situations.
The statistics tell the story about the over-regulation of American economic and social life. The authors write that no one knows how many criminal laws are on the books (the best estimate is 5000). They report that in one recent year, taxpayers trying to comply with the tax code were provided incorrect information by Internal Revenue Agency employees who did not themselves understand the constantly evolving complexities of the country’s tax code about one-third of the time. The IRS has since improved its correct advice rate to about 90 per cent. An Environmental Protection Agency hotline advised that its advice might be out of date by the time users accessed it. Getting the wrong advice by administrators, Gorsuch and Nitze note, is no excuse for non-compliance.
The target of the authors’ ire is mostly the administrative state and its bevy of laws that are often accompanied by criminal sanction. In one recent year, federal agencies issued 3242 final rules and 2285 proposed rules. Moreover, these rules are not written by lawmakers but unelected and often by low-level bureaucrats below the level that requires Senate approval. Gorsuch and Nitze acknowledge “some law is surely essential to our nation’s flourishing and our well-being as individuals” but they argue that when laws proliferate without end, when Washington begins intervening and substituting its judgement for local solutions, and when citizens cannot possibly know they are breaking the law, it threatens the rule of law by undermining trust and faith in government and the courts.
Gorsuch was chastised when he was appointed to the Supreme Court as no friend of the “little guy” but this book shows that more than many judges he keenly aware of the unjust and anti-egalitarian results of being Over Ruled by laws, regulations, and rules without end.
