A State Actually Eliminates Regulations? I May Faint.

The state of Minnesota has
actually struck down more than 1,000 old, obsolete laws. Imagine
that!
From the Pioneer Press:

It’s no longer a crime in Minnesota to carry fruit in an
illegally sized container. The state’s telegraph regulations are
gone. And it’s now legal to drive a car in neutral — if you can
figure out how to do it.

Those were among the 1,175 obsolete, unnecessary and
incomprehensible laws that Gov. Mark Dayton and the Legislature
repealed this year as part of the governor’s “unsession”
initiative. His goal was to make state government work better,
faster and smarter.

“I think we’re off to a very good start,” Dayton said Tuesday at
a Capitol news conference.

There’s actually more than getting rid of those silly laws that
make up occasional “listicles” of “24 Things You Didn’t Know Were
Illegal.” A new law is supposed to streamline the state
environmental permitting process for businesses, and the state is
also cutting the amount of time businesses are required to maintain
employment records. The Press says these efforts were a
result of a bipartisan push. And there’s also this:

Legislators launched an initiative that got rid of more than 30
advisory boards, councils and task forces that had outlived their
usefulness.

It’s possible to get rid of these? I didn’t even know that.
Knowing state government, though, that’s probably less than 1
percent of the advisory boards, councils and task forces that have
actually outlived their usefulness (or never actually had a real
use to begin with).