For the last several decades, a lot of legislation in DC and the State capitols has included a “sunset clause,” also called a sunset rule or a sunset provision. The sunset clause is a measure within a statute, regulation or other law that provides for the law to cease to be effective after a specified date, unless further legislative action is taken to extend it.

A sunset clause is kinda like an expiration date on a product – except (supposedly) binding. We have two general types of expiration dates on food and drugs: “sell by” dates and “use by” dates. To put it another way, the manufacturer or distributor strongly urges the retailer and the buyer (consumer) to pay attention. (As does the government which often mandates that.)

Of course, there is a difference in sunset clauses. For one thing, Congress, legislatures, and the White House don’t want “consumers” (citizens and residents) to pay attention. They want the adulation of the voters and public, not the close attention. They do not want their laws, the imperial decrees we give the euphemistic name “executive order,” and various government regulations and “guidance” to expire.

It was protests and a few citizen-legislators that pushed for the modern sunset clause. This was often based on a complete misunderstanding that government officials really care about obeying the laws they pass. And that the people have a way to hold them accountable when they do not obey the laws.

This isn’t the first time. A type of sunset clause has been part of government documents for centuries: it is claimed that the Roman Senate and Consuls used it, and one of the events in the Book of Daniel seems to involve a similar provision of automatic expiration. Business contracts generally have such a condition: for example a mineral lease agreement usually has a fixed term of five years (although usually with provisions for extensions).

Article 1 Section 9 Clause 1 of the US Constitution had a sort of reverse sunset clause: Congress was prohibited from prohibiting the importation of slaves until 1808. (They did so, on 1 January that year.)

Unfortunately, and a cause of great misery, most federal and State legislation does not sunset. It goes on. And on. And on. Never mind why or what it is for. And too many presidential decrees also have no expiration date: for example, the many “states of emergency” which are supposedly still in existence: even Wikipedia admits that several of Clinton’s declarations and many of Bush II’s still are in effect. Other people point all the way back to the Woodrow Wilson administration.

There is one sort of government document that does not, and should not, have a sunset clause. But today we find ourselves a situation today in these Fifty States and our dependencies. Our political masters and would-be masters act as though there are de facto and unwritten but effective “sunset clauses” on fundamental liberties which are supposed to be protected by the Constitution. And push for such things on the constitutional provisions that weaken the power of those men and women and government.

So we find people like John Kerry coming out against the First Amendment – an essential part of the very document he has sworn to uphold multiple times – because it is “outdated.”

But the truth? There is NO SUNSET CLAUSE on the US Constitution. More importantly, there is NO SUNSET CLAUSE for the God-given rights protected from government by the US Constitution. Both explicit and implied. But unless they are enforced, they might as well be.