[hibikir]

There are quite a few downsides.

The first problem is that now you have to dedicate a whole lot of work to maintenance. Even if this was done in good faith, you'd have millions spent just reading and rubber stamping laws. Legislatures get little done as it is to add more work.

Then, we have the problem of getting the legislature to take this seriously. What stops gigantic omnibus renewals that, for all intents and purposes, lead to the same thing that we have now?

There's also the risks to partisan fighting over controversial laws. Imagine what happens to an impasse over immigration law, or gun control. The winner, politically, would always be the side that would be more capable of tolerating no law at all. This is far more politically charged than just keeping whatever was the consensus in the past.

So that proposal is only a good idea if you believe that having a harder to govern country is something you want. Rarely a popular opinion among people that make laws.

[vacri]

The legislature that unwittingly passed an honour for the 'Boston Strangler' (used his real name, not that name) lends pretty clear evidence to the idea of legislative rubber-stamping instead of disinterested investigation and fact-checking.

Politicians aren't scientists, and don't operate from root causes and facts; they operate from manipulating social factions and perceptions. If they don't see something as important to their key social factions, it's not worth their attention. Honour this Albert de Salvo guy? Sure, why not? Do it and let's move on to the stuff I want to deal with.

http://www.snopes.com/legal/desalvo.asp

[sb23]

But, if someone were to point out that an unfair law had been renewed, they would need to justify why it was renewed. That'd be slightly better than now, right?

[m_mueller]

I look at laws as sort of a program code for society - they define a cost function for unwanted behavior (while the economic system defines a reward function for wanted behavior). From that perspective I have to disagree here - I think GP's suggestion is good - laws should be reviewed from time to time just like legacy code should be reviewed for maintainability reasons (even just so that you keep some people familiar with the code). Every decade is probably too much, but every 20-30 years should be doable without too much cost.

The main problem is creating a process where outdated laws can be removed efficiently - which obviously needs to be done in congress. I think there could be a monetary reward involved - not for the congressmen obviously, but for non-members of the congress who initiate a process that leads to a successful removal.