Why the Law-Making Process in the U.S. is So Slow to React to the Will of the People

It’s common for readers outside the U.S. to wonder how it’s possible that this country is making so little progress on climate change mitigation, even though 2014 was the hottest year on record, and May, June, August, September, October and December were the hottest such months since records began to be kept in 1880.

It’s simply this: powerful interests, not the will of the people, control our law-making processes. Here’s a wonderful example that just happens to be in today’s news: The legislature in the state of Michigan passed a bill (which yesterday, the governor vetoed) that would have broadened the right to carry concealed weapons to some people with restraining orders issued against them for domestic violence.

That’s right, some guy could have beaten the hell out of his wife and threatened her with a gun on Monday, had a judicial restraining order issued against him on Tuesday, and gotten a permit to carry a concealed weapon on Wednesday.

If that were a referendum on a ballot anywhere in the U.S., it would have received far less than 10% of voter support. Yes, we have some states where the people love guns more than they do education, but we don’t have a single one in which the common voter thinks it’s a good idea to have a guy who’s just been arrested for assault and battery against a women, and let him walk around with a gun in his pocket. But that doesn’t matter a whit to the members of the actual state assembly, where representatives serve the interests of those who ushered them into office, in this case, the National Rifle Association.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has my personal thumbs up for defying the all-powerful NRA, though this is a textbook example of how laws are made here, and why it’s silly to expect progress on any matter that could serve to reduce the profits of the huge corporate interests, whether they be guns, oil, etc.