This piece originally appeared at Statutory Alpha.
Laws fail all the time. Everyone in Washington knows that most attempts at reform will fall short. Mapping the complexity of the world onto a bill is a tall order at any point, let alone on the first attempt. Lawmakers learn from their mistakes, refine their approach, and (hopefully) eventually get it right. Democracy muddles through.
But there’s a particular species of failure that's far more troubling. Sometimes laws don't fizzle, they transform into something their authors never intended, or even sought to avoid. The history of the Davis-Bacon Act illustrates this process.
In 1931, Congress faced a problem. Federal contractors were importing cheap labor from other states, undercutting local workers on government projects. The solution seemed simple: require contractors to pay "prevailing wages" based on local standards. To implement the solution, President Hoover signed the Davis-Bacon Act, only two pages long when it was passed.
