We’ve long advocated passage of the mother of all deregulations: the REINS Act, which would require affirmative votes of the House and Senate before major regulations could take effect. After all, Congress makes the laws not thousands of faceless and unelected bureaucrats.

So far, Democratic filibusters have blocked this, and parliamentary rulings have kept it out of reconciliation bills.

But there has been much more progress at the state level, and a few weeks ago Tennessee became the 14th state to pass a REINS Act.

There is a race now for #15 between South Carolina and Missouri, both of which have bills that passed the House and are now teed up for potential Senate votes as sessions wind down.  South Carolina looks likely to pass soon, while Missouri might need more of a push.  We urge both of them to get this done and our advocacy affiliate sent Missouri Senate leaders a letter to that effect yesterday.

Some day maybe this will pass in so many states that when state legislators get elected to Congress they’ll ask what day the votes on regulations are, and maybe then we’ll get the federal bill done.