Local Liberty Charter:

• Introduction: Lansing Gone Wild (and how we fix it).

Right 1: The Right to a Presumption of Liberty.

Our Founder's did their best to ensure our individual freedom. In fact, freedom is the bedrock foundation of the American experiment.

It is because of freedom, that we became the most prosperous society in all of history. And the foundation of freedom is self-ownership, which implies the right to freedom of action.

As David MacGregor says:

Self ownership means just one thing, that YOU are the owner of your life--your body, your mind, your energy, and any consequent results of your life's efforts.

If you are not sure of this--or disagree--then simply ask yourself, "If I am NOT the rightful owner of my own life, then who is?

But owning your life is more than just owning your physical body. It is more than just deciding what to wear, what to eat and what to read. Your life also includes your mind. And with your mind you are able to do a lot of things that are equally defined as "your" life.

To illustrate: If you spent ten hours of your life, last week, on the creation of a new coffee table for your home, then that object is the result of your own life's effort. You expended your own energy in its creation. And, as a result, it is now your property--and rightly so, because it was created by your energy and intention. Ultimately, it is a product of your mind--brought to fruition via the actions of your body.

So a natural consequence of owning your own life, is owning that which your life creates, or trades with others--property.

Too often, local governments restrict our freedom to work, run a business, and even communicate in a peaceful and non-fraudulent way. So to protect our freedoms, the Local Liberty Charter's recommended policy implementation is to codify what Professor Randy Barnett of Georgetown University calls a "presumption of liberty."

In other words, the law should presume each individual is free to act peacefully and honestly. This can be done by precluding, simplifying, and eliminating regulations through "sunrise" and "sunset" review.

All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their equal benefit, security and protection. - CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN OF 1908, Section 1.

Our Constitution naturally supports the idea that the State of Michigan's powers, including those of local governmental subdivisions, are presumptively limited by inherent (inalienable) individual rights. "We the people" must draw a clear line between the powers of local governments and that of individual self-ownership that is needed to produce both economic prosperity, and human dignity. Sunrise and sunset review laws can provide us the framework to draw that line.

Sunrise and sunset laws generally aim to restrict the declaration of laws to those few that are genuinely "required" for public health, safety, and welfare. Typically, these laws require advocates to prepare a detailed report proving a real public health, safety, or general welfare threat exists, and the proposed law effectively addresses said threat better than reduced regulation, common law, or other market-based alternatives.

If dealing with a "sunrise" law, the failure to demonstrate the above, prevents the proposed law from moving out of committee. With a "sunset" law, failure to demonstrate the above results in expiration of the law.

If taken seriously, sunrise and sunset review could be a catalyst for common sense regulatory simplification. This is because sunrise and sunset review can counteract the structural failures of democracy that cause local governments to over-legislate. - Nick Dranias, Goldwater Institute Director, Center for Constitutional Government.

What this accomplishes:

By requiring many stages of legislative action to enact a particular policy (including additional stages of fact-finding), it increases the amount of information available in the process, thereby reducing the lobbying advantage of special interests over ordinary citizens. And in requiring enacted regulations to expire (sunset), we get a leg-up on ending bad policies that were the result of influence, ignorance, or irrationality.

Keep in mind:

• Regulation is often the product of special interests, not sound public policy.
• Regulation too often overrides common sense.
• Regulation is often counterproductive due to unintended consequences.

Enforcing the right to a presumption of liberty requires a thorough sunrise and sunset review to establish that proposed regulation is genuinely required for public health, safety, or welfare and is not paternalistic. This requires a larger inquiry than simply asking what "harm" would be done without the proposed legislation. The review process must also take into account the risks and potential harm of the proposed legislation.

Therefore, the Local Liberty Charter recommends that all local governments be required to establish each of the following:

1. The regulation's objective is protecting public health, safety, or welfare, not restraining competent adults for their own good nor promoting some private interests to the detriment or disadvantage of others.
2. The regulation is within the power of the local governmental body to enact.
3. The regulation targets an activity or condition that is an actual threat to public health, safety, or welfare, which is verifiable, substantial, and not remote.
4. The regulation will substantially reduce or eliminate the threat it targets.
5. The regulation's short, medium, and long-term costs and adverse consequences are not out of proportion to its benefits.
6. Enforcement of the regulation can be performance-benchmarked.
7. The regulation is the least restrictive and least onerous restraint on freedom consistent with feasibly reducing the targeted threat to public health, safety, or welfare.

Potential Criticism:

Many will read this and say to themselves that sunrise and sunset review laws are never taken seriously. At best, they work to repeal various minor regulations, but in reality, the only thing they "accomplish" is the justification of higher administrative costs. And that's a good point, especially with an entrenched legislative body.

To over come this problem, we need three policy fixes.

1. The constitutional "organic law" of local government must prohibit enforcement of any regulation enacted or extended without a formal process of review.
2. In the event of a lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of a regulation, the same "organic law" should empower the judiciary to independently review said regulation for compliance with the sunrise and sunset review process and fulfillment of the requisite legal factors.
3. When conducting the judicial review of freedom-restricting regulations, it should not matter whether the regulation is against economic freedom or noneconomic freedom. Economic regulations are no more agreeable to "review and correction through democratic politics" than noneconomic regulations.

... virtually every case challenging the constitutionality of a law will be brought on behalf of a litigant who is absolutely unique in some ways, and a member of a powerless minority in many other ways. - Timothy Sandefur, Pacific Legal Foundation - Economic Liberties Project.

Additional Information on Self-Ownership:

• In Search of a Basis for Freedom.
• How We Come to Own Ourselves.
• Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality.

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• Lansing Gone Wild (and how we fix it)
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