Beaver Bills

I just printed off the Constitution of Virginia. 56 Pages later (single spaced, roughly 10-pt font, allbeit with a couple intro/end pages), I'm thinking that the General Assembly needs to get its act together and start paring down some of these provisions. Either that or amend Art. XII ("Future Changes") to prevent every Tom Dick and Harry interest group from having a constitutional provision. (Isn't that what the statutes are supposed to be for?) Did you know we have a constitutional provision about oyster beds?

A wise man I know has a term for such provisions: "Beaver Bills."

>>Q: Beaver Bill...Is that what a platypus has?
>>A: No.

He tells the (based on a true) story of a constituent (we'll call him Tom) whose neighbor (we'll call him Dick) was taking down the beaver dams on Dick's property. Dick's property was upstream from Tom. When Dick would remove the beaver dams, the water level on Tom's property would rise. Tom called the police, but there were no laws against removing the beaver dam, so Tom wrote to his representative.

Tom's representative (we'll call him Harry) doesn't care about the beaver problem, yet Harry also recognizes that Tom is an outspoken constituent who could cost Harry at least a couple votes in the next election.

Harry makes a calculated decision. He drafts a Beaver Bill and puts the anti-beaver-dam-removal legislation in it, along with several other bills of the same nature. He doesn't want these to pass, but takes the opportunity to stand up in the G.A. and make a speech about his dedicated constituents and their problems. This shows he really cares. Harry is a hero. He gets to write a reply letter showing he represented their interests and passes the blame for the lack of legislation to his colleagues.

Unfortunately, sometimes Beaver Bills get passed. In our story, Harry does too good a job advocating about the beavers, or perhaps some of the other representatives also have a beaver problem, or perhaps the other representatives aren't listening that day and they certainly don't want to admit that. So now Harry is responsible for a bunch of stupid laws on the books...but nobody will be the wiser (except for some law clerk who decides to read the whole code). That's how we get Beaver Bills.

I'm guessing--based on the length, and on the bits I've skimmed so far--that the VA Constitution is full of Beaver Bills. I will reserve judgment until the end and let you know.