FLOOD OF LAWS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3443, 10 November 1932, Page 8

FLOOD OF LAWS

AMERICA’S EXPERIENCE. RECORD FIGURES. A round 500 laws were enacted by the United States Congress during the last session, says the New York Times. These were chosen from 18,000 Bills introduced, one of the bumper Bill crops in history. Of this total of ideas on what legislation the country needed 13,000 were presented in the House and 5000 in the Senate. Most were of minor importance. The House figure compares with only 7700 for the last long session of Congress. Besides the Bills in both houses this term there were simple resolutions, joint resolutions, and concurrent resolutions which would add approximately another 1000 thoughts on the public weal. The tally of the last long session showed 517 public laws, 281 private laws and resolutions, and 84 public resolutions passed and signed by the President —a larger total than for this session. Representative Crail of California easily held the Bill-introducing record in the House. In the record book kept by William J. McDermott, Bill clerk, Mr. Crail 'filled up all his own page and spilled over to the back of the book with a total of 533. This record, to be augmented in the short session, appears likely to stand for a long time, for it was amassed from Mr. Crail’s Los Angeles constituency of 1,300,000, which will be divided into four full districts and part of another at the next Congress. In contrast to Mr. Crail, Representatives Busby of Mississippi, Drewery of Virginia, EUzey of Mississippi, Granata of Illinois, Sullivan of New York, and Wood of Georgia, introduced but one Bill each. Representative Briggs of Texas introduced none. The House average per member was just a little below 30; the Senate average per member was 51. Representative Leavitt of Montana held his record of being the House member to have the most Bills bearing his name become laws —a total of seventeen. Last Congress he had thirty-three—-twenty-two in the long session and eleven in the short. Among the 18,000 measures, length varied from a few words to scores of pages, importance from the merest trifle to measures of such countrywide significance as the Economy, Revenue, and Relief Bills, the Moratorium Bill, and the “lame duck’ resolution.