I've long wondered if legislation should be required to have "reasonable" justifications provided with it in order to be passed -- and if not, judicial review should be able to strike it down, whether as a whole law, parts of a law, or exemptions in a law.
In other words, lawmakers shouldn't be allowed to pass whatever law they want. Rather, as part of the law, they would be required to explain the underlying need to justify the law, why that need is legitimate, and why this particular law is the best solution to satisfy the need. And if those didn't pass a minimal level of muster, then its gets struck down.
Because the idea that minimum wage would be exempt for "chains that bake bread and sell it as a standalone item" is just something that it's impossible to think of any reasonable justification for, unless there were some kind of emergency nationwide shortage of bread or something -- which is not the case here.
Generally speaking I'm not even a big fan of judicial review as a concept, since it does seem to involve a somewhat anti-democratic element of appointed judges overriding elected representatives. But at the same time, I do think that legislation needs to have a basic level of justification and coherency -- and the governor getting legislators to insert an exemption for his buddy seems even more anti-democratic.
> if legislation should be required to have "reasonable" justifications provided with it in order to be passed
This is usually the preamble. When a law is weighed in court, moreover, lawmakers’ statements are often referenced to gauge intent.
In this case, California works in a better way. A court paused the law after popular outcry was mobilised into a petition campaign [1]. The law is on hold until a popular referendum on it concludes [2].
But in practice, a legislative body may or may not deliberate. And that deliberation may or may not include reasons for some of the parts of the legislation. (And it virtually never includes deliberation on a small clause like this.)
But at the end of the day, nothing has to be deliberated on. It's just a majority vote at the end of the day.
It often does include such deliberations, if you watch state legislative committee videos on YouTube. If it doesn’t, often times a citizen is free to testify and raise the issue.
Many of these small clause discussions go on around amendments.
There is less deliberation on policies (rules) and regulations (how an agency decides to implement a passed law). There is deliberation of course but it is more opaque to the public and less record is made.
Whether it’s easy to do effectively by the public is another thing.
In other words, lawmakers shouldn't be allowed to pass whatever law they want. Rather, as part of the law, they would be required to explain the underlying need to justify the law, why that need is legitimate, and why this particular law is the best solution to satisfy the need. And if those didn't pass a minimal level of muster, then its gets struck down.
Because the idea that minimum wage would be exempt for "chains that bake bread and sell it as a standalone item" is just something that it's impossible to think of any reasonable justification for, unless there were some kind of emergency nationwide shortage of bread or something -- which is not the case here.
Generally speaking I'm not even a big fan of judicial review as a concept, since it does seem to involve a somewhat anti-democratic element of appointed judges overriding elected representatives. But at the same time, I do think that legislation needs to have a basic level of justification and coherency -- and the governor getting legislators to insert an exemption for his buddy seems even more anti-democratic.