Out of Gas

Illinois State Rep. Camille Lilly took some lumps over the last few days about legislation she introduced which would have prevented people living in Illinois from pumping their own gas. Currently, New Jersey is the only state which prohibits self-serve gas stations. Oregon used to, but then tweaked its law so that in its more rural areas, gas stations could offer self-service if they wanted to. Portland residents were still considered not bright enough to properly operate a gas pump, and, well, my mockery just ran aground on the shoals of All Too Plausibility.

In any event, Rep. Lilly has backed off the outright ban it seemed that her proposed legislation would have enacted. She now says that the proposal "had some verbiage that was not my intent at all." She only intended to address safety and convenience issues at gas stations and said that she intended to start a conversation about those issues and others related to the overwhelming prevalence of self-serve stations in relationship to full-service ones.

As I have no direct knowledge of Rep. Lilly, I believe I should take her at her word unless some reason appears to tell me to do otherwise. I have no problem believing she proposed legislation she had not fully read without any intention of it becoming a law that people had to obey. And I have no problem believing this because lawmakers do it all of the time. Just recently this space noted an Oklahoma lawmaker who wanted to prevent companies that make things like "soy milk" from calling it soy milk and making them call it "soy extract."

I have no problem believing that legislators want to "start conversations" and "begin discussions" and whatnot, since the majority of them at the state and federal level rarely seem to want to do the work that people voted them in to do and pay them to do, which is craft and pass legislation in order to help maintain an orderly and just society insofar as is humanly possible.

Certainly there's an alternative explanation. It's possible, of course, that Rep. Lilly proposed something dumb that she didn't realize would make people angry. She could admit that and withdraw the legislation, or she might even say something like, "Well, this law may make people angry and if we pass it I may lose my legislative seat, but this is important enough that I'll pay that price." But now we've entered the realm of science fiction, a strange world where legislators legislate, people start their own conversations and folks who live in Portland are smart enough to pump their own gas.