Every so often, one of us here at the Levison Group feels the need to review the laws enacted by the noble legislators of our nations’ states. In need of some interesting and questionable policy directives to brighten up my day, I volunteered to undertake the task this time around. I was NOT disappointed.
I learned that, beginning in 2014, residents of Wellington, Kan., will no longer be allowed to own a feline basketball team. Yep, no cat basketball teams will be allowed. It’s not that the town has any objections to cats playing basketball, it’s a numbers thing. They have limited their residents to owning only four cats, and not a whisker more, thus effectively outlawing cat soccer as well.
Although a pain to the famous cat ladies, you can see the logic in the ordinance. The town was obviously being overrun by untrained cats and had had enough.
Nebraska lawmakers, however, must have looked far and wide for a reason to enact my favorite new law. Under Nebraska law, drivers on mountains must now drive with caution and use the right hand edge of the highway. This might have made sense if Nebraska had any mountains! Unfortunately, it does not.
In Illinois, it isn’t so much this year’s legislature that merits attention as it is their forebearers. This year’s body enacted a law making it illegal in Illinois to have sex with a corpse. I’m not arguing with the law, but why did it have to be enacted? The reason is disturbingly simple: Until this year, Illinois had NO LAW specifically forbidding sex with a dead person.
In the state of Washington, tobacco smoking is not illegal, but carrying or using an apparatus to smoke anything is. Thus, if you’re willing to smoke your tobacco by lighting it in your hand, you can do so, but you can’t smoke it or even the newly legalized marijuana in a pipe. Using similar logic, Moore, Okla., decided it would make driving with a trailer hitch on your car or truck illegal.
Following up on Illinois’ anti-necrophilia law’s view that it’s better to have things be illegal than just the epitome of bad taste, it’s also now officially illegal to use a dead person’s handicapped parking sign or license plate in that state.
In North Carolina, you used to be able to steal your neighborhood restaurant’s grease, but no more. Steal less than $1,000 worth, and it’s a misdemeanor, but $1,000 or more will get you a felony. So, you slippery criminals beware!
As interesting as these laws may be, none may be as interesting as the one lobbyists for the American Medical Association recently got pushed through in Tinseltown. In Hollywood, it’s now illegal to use an infant in a movie unless you first get the permission of a pediatrician. Parental rights be damned; it’s all up to the doctors! (Unless, of course, an insurance company is involved, because we all know their policy administrators practice better medicine than your family physician.)
©2014 under analysis LC under analysis is a nationally syndicated column of the Levison Group. Charles Kramer is a principal of the St Louis, Mo., based law firm, Riezman Berger, PC. Comments or criticisms can be sent c/o this paper or direct via email to comments@levisongroup.com.