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New Laws To Take Effect In 2012 After Conference Of State Legislatures

January 2, 2012 by  

New Laws To Take Effect In 2012 After Conference Of State Legislatures

The National Conference of State Legislatures issued its annual list of laws set to take effect in 2012, as several States prohibited the sale of certain products and medicines or made acquiring these items more difficult, The Washington Times reported.

According to the newspaper, California and Oregon passed laws prohibiting the sale, trade or distribution of shark fins – used in shark-fin soup – and the former also became the first State in the country to require a prescription for any drug containing dextromethorphan. This ingredient is found in many popular over-the-counter cough suppressants.

The Times reported that voter identification continued to be a hot topic for legislators in 2011, as four States, including Kansas, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Texas, approved laws that required voters to present photo identification before casting a ballot.

POLITICO reported that a handful of States also passed laws in 2011 restricting texting and the use of cell phones while driving, and in several Southern States businesses will need to enroll in the Federal E-Verify program to work, requiring confirmation of their employees’ immigration status.

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  • Gringo Infidel

    this is the result of so much ‘exclusivity.’ The forced inclusion of stupid ideas to make folks feel good.

    but if we have to present pictures at the time of voting how will the demoncrats keep perpetuating electorate fraud?

    Litigate and call it racist.

  • Grama M

    Talk to every one you can and remind them November is coming and they need to give serious consideration to participating in reclaiming the America we once had and correcting all the burdens that have been foisted upon Her citizens over the past several years. People, we are on the brink of loosing it all…FOREVER! Become a factor in saving the America that once was and clean out all the graft and corruption that we now live with. America is the only country that is ruled by law and has been an inspiration and salvation to many. Let us keep it that way.

    • ChristyK

      Consider running for office, even if it is just a local office. If people who understand liberty, economics, and the constitution will not inconvenience themselves by running for office, we don’t have the right to complain about what we get. Running for national office is more difficult, but every government position, that can be filled with a constitutionalist, helps.

      My husband ran for State Representative in 2010 and is acting as a representative. The more people we can get in state and local offices, the better we can educate people and the better we can stand up to the federal government.

      We decided that DC is so messed up that we were better off standing up for state’s rights at the state level than trying at the Federal level. Also, we have a part time state legislature. With a small business and 2 small children (1 special needs), it would be impossible for him to be in DC most of the year. Even though it is a hardship, it is worthwhile even if he can only make a small difference. We are working hard trying to get more constitutionalists elected in our state.

  • LMinDesPlaines

    According to the news on television last night, new laws across all fifty states total 40,000! In other words, another 40,000 restrictions on our liberty. What was that again about “land of the free?”

  • JimH

    Now I won’t have to text my order for sharkfin soup while I’m driving over to pick it up. What a joke.

  • Grama M

    If memory serves me, bills/laws passed typically do not go into or have much effect for sometime after the fact. That being said, it would seem reasonable that the actual results/effects of most bills take months or years to produce the intended results. One need also factor in the parties not only in the White House, but also the houses of Congress. Ergo, legislation passed under one President may have no obvious effect until after another President is elected and takes office. It would, however, seem that the current administration has managed to bring consequential results into his term immediately after taking office. Attempting to describe or validate the actions of any President needs the tempering of including the contribution of the Congress into the determination of actual results of legislation and responsibility or validation of same. On the other hand, when one “party” has control of all three branches of government, they can do as they choose, as this current administration did for the first two years, without the counter balance of the other party’s voice, they pretty much have, and in this case HAD, full control of everything and the Senate, the House and the White House, and they made it immediate. Thanks to all of them, we, our children, our grandchildren and who knows how many generations it will take, IF EVER, to recover from the actions of so few and so reckless people. I encourage everyone to pray for the future of our country and the redemption of her political saboteurs.

    • Sirian

      Well said Grama M, well said. It’s both irritating and a true shame that so many don’t understand what’s taking place let alone care? Again, well said.

    • Ted Crawford

      Yet they still manage to blame Bush for their shortcommings!

  • Ken Kovack

    I have never seen data that compared the record of a sitting President with that of a retired Speaker of the House. Therefore, I consider the question, based on the state of the then and now economy, unfair and selective. Correct me if I am wrong. Wasn’t it President Clintons first annual budget sent to Congress that put the nation on the path to annual deficit redctions before Gingrich became the Speaker? As I recall not one Senate or House Republican (including Gingrich) voted for Clintons first budget which reduced the last budget deficit of G.H.W.Bush from $290 billion to $250 billion. Opposition to that Clinton budget was led by Republican Senator Phil Gramm and Representative Dick Armey each declaring that unemployment would increase and the economy would be harmed. According to Republican, Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Clinton left office with the largest budget surplus ever that was on a path to eliminate the deficit by the year 2012. According to Greenspan, George W. Bush “squandered the surplus in about a year” even though he promised we can cut taxes, have a budget surplus and continue to pay down the national debt. Of course none of that ever happened. Bush never had a surplus budget year except the one that he inherited from Clinton. In addition, Greenspan (his book, The Age of Turbulance) stated that the war in Iraq was not about missils of mass destruction, it was about oil, the wars adding to the Bush annual deficits to this day. (Note comment of Bush in the book The Price of Loyality where he states focuing on the Suddam Hussein regime in his first ten days in office.) In addition, President George W. Bush never included paying for the two wars in his annual budget proposals to the Congress nor did he propose/require any monatary sacrifices by the public, as other wartime presidents did, to pay for the wars. Instead he asked the Congress for supplemental appropriations to pay for the wars.
    I, like many others, hopefully look for data that is free of the partisan opinions especially in election years. Facts on issues, more so than party affiliation, dominates when choosing candidates for public office. As football coach and general manager Bill Parcels stated when negotiating contracts with players, “you are what your record says you are”. That quote seems to me as reasonable, if not better, criteria or as a guide to consider when choosing a candidate for public office.

  • http://www.fightingpatriot.com patriot ken

    All these laws (regulations)being passed is about taking your freedom away a little at a time. There are so many that if you’re not a lawyer, and then it’s even hard for them to know, you don’t know what your rights are any more. Take for instance the ban on cell phone use while driving even with a hands free device.

    When you have a hands free device you don’t have to hold on to a phone. It’s just like talking to someone next to you; like your spouse or girlfriend. Would you tell them to be quite and not to talk while you are driving? Well maybe sometimes but that’s not the point. I agree with not texting or have the phone in your hand but if you have a hands free device then talk for a short time because this is more of your freedom being taken away.

    • http://teamlaw.org Jazzabelle

      I would suggest visiting http://teamlawforum.net/ and searching for “driver’s license.” You will find that virtually every traffic law is optional to obey if you’re operating your car without a license, which itself is optional to get.

      It’s the DMV’s best-kept secret….

  • Ted Crawford

    Another kind of law that reduces peoples respect are those that are passed in a time and place where they seem, in fact they often are, necessary to solve an injustice, only to become problematic when left beyond their specific need.
    A prime example of that is Section 1, Clause1, of the 14th. Amendment. At the time an injustice needed to be corrected, this accomplished that purpose. Today it, like Artical 1, Section 8 Clause 3 is abused for politicians personal agendas. The former to create anchor babies and the ladder to justify nearly anything, even PPACA!

    • James

      Well said, I have been advocating the repeal of Section 1 for years.

  • Karolyn

    These are not bad laws and do serve a purpose. I just heard of a law in NC about buying over-the-counter cold medicine, which would track sales in order to prevent ingredients being used to make meth. With “progress” comes new situations requiring new laws. There is much to be said on both sides of the fence. I am not necessarily for all new laws, but some of them make a good deal of sense.

    • Marty

      Ending the insane (and putative) “war” on Drugs would work much easier—and save a helluva lot of money at the same time!

      • James

        Trafficing in intoxicating liquors was outlawed by the 18th Amendment, and that just made the problem worse. Why not leglalize marijuana and cocaine?

      • Steven

        No way the government would do that; then they would not be able to do that unconstitutional thing of confiscating peoples houses, cars, and bank accounts’. We are fast becoming a socialist “police state”. The 20yr old kid living with his mother gets busted for dealing weed and the government takes the poor women’s house, she ends up homeless. Real”justice tempered with mercy”; or rather “legalized theft tempered with cruelty”…. I don’t smoke myself but I think if they legalized weed and taxed it our debt problems would be solved without oppression of decent tax paying citizens.

    • Moosedrool

      But the meth heads and the meth cookers will just find some other chemical to replace the one they cannot get. I am surprised that we are still “allowed” to buy drano and road flares as I have heard of these being used to make meth. Thank goodness I do not live in Oregon or Cali.

    • Karolyn

      Marty & Moose – You’re both right. Ijust heard about another new chemical concoction taking the place of synthetic pot that was outlawed. they just change the chemical composition, and the legislatures have to make another law to cover it. It will never end. They should just give up!

  • Tom SC

    I agree SC, Yours is the most sensible comment I have read in a long time. Put your trust in your fellow Americans and not your legislators.

  • ajax

    The proliferation of irrelevant laws,just for the sake of passing new laws is a problem in itself.To give the impression that lawmakers are doing something is a way to get reelected. People loose respect for important laws when they see these useless regulations,which they break.This leads to a culture of breaking more rules until there is a lack of respect for meaningful order.Enough already of the for overbearing government nannies. Still,consider that the voters who elected these people aren’t too bright either or these legislaters would not be in power.

  • s c

    Most ‘new’ laws are a pure waste of time. There are exceptions to that, but the principle applies to state and federal laws (regardless of the fact that most elected types should be neutered before they take office).
    Now, if the American people could awaken from their extended hibernation, they could understand why we need functional laws that require that we have elected types who can READ and understand what they READ. We just might have a chance to be represented by people who actually BELONG where they are. What a refreshing change of pace THAT would be.

    • Kate8

      sc – Lawmakers know they are passing too many laws, and they know that they are nothing but harrassment.

      This new law that “legalizes” the indefinite detaining of anyone they choose, with no explanation or even admission, it’s easy to see the writing on the wall.

      If you want to justify the rounding up of the citizenry, Nazi style, you just make everything people do illegal.

  • Sharon Goodwin

    No I would not survive. I live on oxygen 24/7 and it takes electricity for it to work. Also. Nearly all my foodstamps have been taken away and I’m on ssdi and got a raise for the new year but I will lose the 15 dollars worth of foodstamps I get a month because it and my rent will go up as well. Useless to get a raise for any of us on ss or ssdi. Infact we lose more. So I wouldn’t have any food to eat and since the state is cutting back on helping people, well yes it will be mass murder in the USA so called most freedom country in the world. Not anymore and don’t see any Gov. that give a darn……

    • Marty

      Argumentum ad misercordium

      While your misfortune may be both unfortunate and unearned, I cannot see how it is a claim on the lives of other people. Resorting to robbery is not a very moral way to assuage your plight. Remember, when you demand that “the government” give you something, you are demanding that those in power use their guns to take it from those persons who earned it first. When the resources of friends and family run out, when the limits of private charity has been exhausted, then persuading strangers with appeals to reason and requests for gifts are the last moral resort. We all want a happy and healthy life. Some of us want it at the expense of others. Some want it no matter what the consequences. Life, by its very nature, is unfair.

      • Walt

        “Social Justice” by any other name is theft and robbery. Taking by force, that which is earned by another, to give to others, deserving or not, is today called “Social Justice” and “redistribution of wealth”.

        While our hearts may go out to those unfortunate and wretched in life, many of these folks did not “make hay while the sun shined” and did not prepare or insure for their own personal calamities.

        Surely we all recall the story of the 3 Little Pigs. Well, when the wolf finally arrives at your door, will you have spent your days building an inadequate house of straw, while you played and frolicked, then demanding to be let into the house of brick made by those who prepared for the coming of the wolf?

      • Kate8

        Very well said, Marty.

        While it’s a terrible thing that there are people who suffer in ill health and poverty, whether by having made poor choices or by unfortunate calamity, it never can justify forcing those who have worked hard (and have surmounted their own obstacles in life) to fork over to pay the way for someone else.

        In a moral society, people reach out and help one another because they recognize that we are all one in spirit, and they feel moved to do the right thing. That is why the PTB have worked so hard to devastate the human spirit, so that everyone is out for himself and thus, it is left to BigBro to make the rules. They can confiscate the wealth of producers to fill their own largesse, which they do, because only a very small portion ever goes to “entitlements”.

        Even the word “entitlement” was used to make people feel that they have the RIGHT to assistance. That way, there is no gratitude but only demand. And it’s never enough.

        We, as a nation, are completely corrupt, morally bankrupt. When govt. assumes the right to regulate every aspect of our being, not just how we make a living and how much we can keep of our own money, but right down to our most personal of choices (what we eat, drink, breathe, read, speak, think, believe, our health choices, what we can teach our children, where we can live, go…), we then face a terrible choice. Are we going to accept our new role as livestock, with no personal freedoms whatsoever, or are we going to stand up and declare “enough!” and take back our human dignity?

        Whatever we get, we will have deserved by the choices we’ve made. It is always so.

      • James

        I agree, Congress was not supposed to have the power to provide for the general welfare, that was the office of the Salvation Army and various church organizations.

      • Kent

        Actually, the General Welfare clause isn’t in the main body of the Constitution, it’s in the preamble. The preamble states the broad purposes of the Constitution, but it grants no powers.

        “General” means pertaining to everybody. Congress can promote the general welfare by creating the kind of legal environment that protects equal legal rights for all, and the opportunity for anyone to prosper who makes wise choices. The general welfare cannot be achieved by legally taking from some to give to others – that kind of policy promotes the general enslavement, of all to all the others.

    • Steven

      I am 48 and have worked full time my whole life and I feel good that my tax dollars are able to help those in need. Social Security would be a very small part or our budget with plenty left over if our tax dollars were spent responsibly. I hope there will still be a Social Security at my retirement because I have no relatives to fall back on; Thank God for FDR even though the system is not now at all the way he invisoned it. My heart goes out to you Sharon; hope thinks get better for you, our elders receive are not repected as they once were.

  • Ted Crawford

    Two thoughts from the past still relevent today, “If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the Law” Winston Churchill
    “The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be” Lau-Tzu

    • James

      Is Lau-Tzu saying there would be no criminals if wrongdoing were not penalized?

      • ajax

        No. He is simply saying, people will not obey useless laws and will be added to the list of criminals.

      • Marty

        “If you want men to respect your laws, you must first make your laws respectable.” —Henry David Thoreau

      • Steven

        Our modern day profits spoke of these things over 20yrs ago; man’s need to feed from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (i.e. mans very imperfect judgments’ on those who are “different”); These “righteous peoples” need to control, judge and separate people is taking us down a slippery slope FAST…

        AC\DC circa:1976
        It’s criminal; there ought to be a law,so criminal there ought to be a whole lot more,if you want blood well you got it…

        Judas Priest: circa 1981
        Up here in space, I’m looking down on you.
        My lasers trace Everything you do.
        You think you’ve private lives, Think nothing of the kind.
        There is no true escape, I’m watching all the time.
        I’m made of metal, My circuits gleam.
        I am perpetual, I keep the country clean.

        I’m elected electric spy, I protected electric eye.
        Always in focus, You can’t feel my stare.
        I zoom into you, You don’t know I’m there.
        I take a pride in probing all your secret moves
        My tearless retina takes pictures that can prove.

        Electric eye, in the sky, Feel my stare, always there
        ‘s nothing you can do about it, Develop and expose
        I feed upon your every thought, And so my power grows.
        Protected. Detective. Electric eye.

        CCTV in Britan and LA up and running; don’t spit on the sidwalk if you don’t want to get a ticket…

      • James

        I was asking about Lau Tzu’s statement not churchill’s. Laws, not regulations.

      • cawmun cents

        What the great Eastern man of wisdom was saying,is that if you make too many laws,eventually nearly everyone will become a criminal.
        Not because you have created utopia,but because you have structured the laws to make a profit.This was true in his day,as it is today.
        We havent learned from history,and when we ignore it,and the merit of having learned from it,we will likely face the same situation over again.When you learn from revisionists,many of the key lessons of historical note are left out,so you can learn dates and places.
        The true scholar would use time and area to establish when and where,but if you learn content through dilligent study,then the emphasis is on what you can learn from what happened.That way,you are less likely to repeat the mistakes of the past.
        Whjen you revise how learning is done to create the conditions of proving that learning was accomplished,you then have to deal with the content having suffered for it.
        “The past is studied for the sake of the present.”-Mao Tse Tung
        “Once we understand how the eye gets information,it is a simple matter to confuse an enemy’s eye into misinterpreting the incoming information.”-Lung,Knights of Darkness.
        You may be guilty of misinterpreting the incoming information.
        “All we see depends on our senses;suppose they lie to us?”-Aleister Crowley,1920
        You who depend solely on your senses have no answer to this dilemna.
        “Opinions are powerless so long as they only confuse the brain without arming the hand.”-Joseph von Hammer,History of the Assassins
        The revisionists have confused your brain,without arming your hand.
        That is essentially what they were assigned to accomplish.
        I’d say that it was a successful endeavor from the looks of it.
        “What you are thundres so loudly that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary”-Ralph Waldo Emerson
        There are the three knows.
        1.Know yourself
        2.Know your enemy
        3.Know your environment
        It would seem that you lack one or more of these knowledges.
        So….we can narrow it down to one know.
        Know your role.
        Victim of circumstances.
        Cheers!
        -CC.

  • David in MA

    1984, just a little late getting here…….

    • Steven

      Well spoken! without a doubt..

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