Talk:Public and private bills

Untitled
Should we mention the Schiavo private bill that just passed Congress? john k 18:01, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No, you should not. You should reference "Bill of Attainder". -- Pinktulip 13:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have referenced "Bill of Attainder", and I fail to see the relevance to this article. Bills of attainder are specifically forbidden in Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, and yet this article as currently written talks about private bills as having been common in the U.S. from 1817 to 1971. Clearly then the concept of a private bill is not congruent with the concept of a bill of attainder, so I do not see how the last paragraph as currently written makes sense in the context of the article. Is the last paragraph intended to speak to the Schiavo case itself, now deleted from the article? -- Mmccalpin 05:49, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Merging with Private bills
I would completely agree that the article Private bills is wholly unnecessary and should be merged with this one. -- Mmccalpin 05:56, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Not sure what previous discussion this references, but I fully agree. This somehow was never done. I'm just going to go ahead and merge. $$\langle$$ Forbes72 &#124; Talk $$\rangle$$ 19:47, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

States (U.S.)
From what I understand, private acts are still quite commonplace in the legislatures of many of the states. They certainly are here in Tennessee, where they are required for things such as amending the charter of non-home rule cities, meaning that they must be passed to do things such as give many small-town mayors a raise or change the length of terms of city counsellors. Additionally, similar bills are often passed with wording like "this article shall only be operative in cities with a population of 680,000 or greater in the 2000 federal census, or any subsequent census" (meaning in this example, only Memphis, or, for a truly ludicrous example, "'Restaurant' also means a facility located in any municipality haiving a population in excess of one hundred thousand (100,000) accoring to the 1990 federal census, or any subsequent census, in which coffees, teas, pastries, and other foodstuffs are offered for sale for consumption on the premises, which facility has a seating capacity of at least thirty (30) seats and which facility obatins at least fifty percent (50%) of its annual gross revenues from the sale of coffees, teas, and pastries..." {Tennessee Code Annotated, 57-4-102(27)(F)), which is a provision of a "public act" which essentially allows one particular pastry shop to apply for a liquor license. Are such things common in most states, or is Tennessee a particularly bad example? Rlquall 15:14, 5 April 2006 (UTC)