By the way, it's called the TRUMP act; Tax Returns Uniformly Made Public.
Pun intended?
Without question. These days, most any legislative Act has to have a catchy anagram. Ted Cruz introduced a bill to seize El Chapo's rumored funds (not a dime of which has ever been located, BTW) and use the money to pay for the border wall. The act is called the Ensuring Lawful Collection of Hidden Assets to Provide Order Act. Or, for short, the EL CHAPO Act.
Politicians
love acronyms.
Love them. I mean, like they
really, really love them. Like medicines that bear the scientific name of hexaflourodiazeprine but are marketed as Happinex, politicians give bills acronyms to make them easier to remember and refer to, and quite often, easier to swallow. The best ones are clever, unique and unforced. There's nothing more painful in Pun Land than seeing an obvious attempt to craft a nice, 12-letter acronym where you just know a politician had their staffers up late into the night digging deep in thesauruses to try and figure out what tortured set of words to assign the thing (which is exactly what Ted Cruz admitted his staff did, although he did give the staffer who came up with it credit, so props to Ted).
The SMOKE Act, introduced by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), is Stop Selling and Marketing to Our Kids E-Cigarettes Act.
Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) gave us the TIGER CUBS Act of 2015, which stands for the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery for Cities Underfunded Because of Size Act
Some of them are acronyms made to shame people if they vote against it. Like, the PATRIOT Act, or more accurately, the USA PATRIOT Act (which really started the whole acronym mess). Who would vote against the USA PATRIOT Act? Someone with a conscious, that's who. The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act mostly violated the privacy rights of Americans.
Others just have names that don't have anything at all to do with what's in the bill. Like, after 9/11, the farm bill was named the “Farm Security Act” because, who could vote against security? 80% of that bill was Food Stamps. A couple of years ago the farm bill was named Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act, because "jobs" is the word all the cool kids are using. The only jobs to be found in the bill were the jobs that handed out subsidies to farmers.
One of my favorites is the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act, which protects restaurants from being sued for a person’s weight gain or obesity. It doesn't have a catchy acronym, but it got a nickname that stuck. It's the Cheeseburger Bill.
But this naming business is
more serious than one might think. There's a push and several proposals to remove the ability to name legislation from those proposing it, and give the naming authority to a non- or bi-partisan entity. In the landmark
United States v. Windsor, a discussion (dispute) in the Supreme Court happened regarding the law's short title (DOMA) and the role of short titles in inferring legislative purpose. Much like Trump's campaign rhetoric was used to infer the purpose of the travel ban, legislative short titles are too often used to infer the "real" purpose of the legislation.
If short titles are used by the Supreme Court when determining legislative purpose, then they should be written in accurate, neutral language like that used for other substantive aspects of statutes. All citizens, including legislators and judges, should be able to examine a law without being influenced by overtly partisan and misleading language. The essence of government is to inform and benefit the citizenry, not mislead; statutes, being the preeminent outcome of the democratic process, should be held to this foundational standard.
