Some laws on the books make no sense.
What do we do with them? Just ignore them? Well, sure, in some cases, but, you never know when someone may decide to arrest you for detaining a homing pigeon or failing to audibly signal your intention to pass another vehicle (and not one drawn by a horse — until recently, that wasn’t allowed) or dancing on Main Street, and even worse, dancing in shorts, in Caldwell, N.J. — yes, Caldwell. These prohibitions have been sitting, unchallenged, as New Jersey laws.
Gov. Chris Christie agreed with the Legislature to repeal these particular laws, but how do we come to know about laws that need change? In New Jersey, fortunately, we have the New Jersey Commission of Law Revision that, since 1987, has been about the good work of identifying statutes that are obsolete, inconsistent with federal law, silly and unnecessary and some that are necessary but need revision or updating.