A State Actually Eliminates Regulations? I May Faint.
The state of Minnesota has actually struck down more than 1,000 old, obsolete laws. Imagine that! From the Pioneer Press:
It's no longer a crime in Minnesota to carry fruit in an illegally sized container. The state's telegraph regulations are gone. And it's now legal to drive a car in neutral — if you can figure out how to do it.
Those were among the 1,175 obsolete, unnecessary and incomprehensible laws that Gov. Mark Dayton and the Legislature repealed this year as part of the governor's "unsession" initiative. His goal was to make state government work better, faster and smarter.
"I think we're off to a very good start," Dayton said Tuesday at a Capitol news conference.
There's actually more than getting rid of those silly laws that make up occasional "listicles" of "24 Things You Didn't Know Were Illegal." A new law is supposed to streamline the state environmental permitting process for businesses, and the state is also cutting the amount of time businesses are required to maintain employment records. The Press says these efforts were a result of a bipartisan push. And there's also this:
Legislators launched an initiative that got rid of more than 30 advisory boards, councils and task forces that had outlived their usefulness.
It's possible to get rid of these? I didn't even know that. Knowing state government, though, that's probably less than 1 percent of the advisory boards, councils and task forces that have actually outlived their usefulness (or never actually had a real use to begin with).