A few months ago, my father let me know that New Hampshire had passed a law that required the various government agencies to update their rules/statutes every few years (5 years? 7 years? Dad, help me out here). I'm not entirely sure what the scope of this law was, but my Dad mentioned that it was actually quite helpful for his work at the DMV. It had surprised him how many of their rules did not actually reflect the changing times, and how helpful it was to update them. One of the biggest rules they had found to update was that in certain situations, they were still only allowed to accept doctor's notes from M.D.s....so anyone who used a nurse practitioner for primary care couldn't get an acceptable note....despite NPs being perfectly qualified to comment on the situations they were assessing. It wasn't that the note needed to be from an MD, it was just that when the rule was written, very few people had anything other than a primary care MD. I found the entire idea pretty good and proactive.
I was thinking about that after my post yesterday on South Dakota's law regarding abortion risk disclosure. I was wondering how many, if any, states require that laws based primarily on current scientific research review those laws in any given time period.
Does anyone know if any states require this? Or is this solely up to those who oppose certain laws to challenge things later?
It is called a sunset law. It requires all state regulations to be reviewed and reenacted every 8 years or they expire. I had my first experience reviewing my office's rules this year and it took a lot of time. We didn't do away with any, but it was a good opportunity to rework the ones that don't make sense any more (e.g. medical info from a physician only - how many people actually see a physician any more?) Unfortunately, there is no parallel law for statutes - laws are forever!
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