We reporters write stuff all day long in our chosen vocation, so, honestly, the last thing I want to do in my gnat-fart sized helping of downtime at the end of the day is to spend it filling out the seeming endless stream of public comment forms that accompany the overzealous Texas rulemongering that has become a burgeoning pastime for so many in this state. The latest form cluttering my inbox is regarding a rewrite of the toothless anti-contracting bill we broke the budget getting passed some years back.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm completely against reporters crack-whoring themselves out to insurance carriers for two-fiddy a page. The commoditization of the court reporting profession is, in my opinion, the single most heinous peril on our collective horizon, and so long as there's one more reporting agency down the road willing to kneecap the last guy by a dime a page, there really is no basement. In the end we'll all end up in cubicles at {insert insurance company name here} transcribing tapes for a quarter a page.

We all know The Golden Rule: Those who have the gold make the rules... and who's got more gold than the insurance carriers? They've HMO'd the docs, they've beancounted the lawyers to death, and there's no way we're ever gonna get any legislation that'll definitively protect us from the same wrath, so please be wary of broad, sweeping rule changes that promise the impossible.

This new anti-contracting legislation scares me. Were it possible to enjoin reporters and agencies from conducting the business practices enumerated in subparts (a) through (h), the world would absolutely be a better place, but here's the way I see it playing out:

We'll end up with a slew of "new and improved" onerous rules, none of which in their final form will be concrete enough to stop anyone from doing anything; the powers that be will read between the lines to their own detriment (as they always do), espousing that it will now be necessary to disclose what color underpants the reporter is wearing (or some other such silliness); and those that wish to continue engaging in these now pseudo-prohibited activities will be unfettered, as a strict reading of the rules really won't preclude a damn thing.

And even if this legislation were to be passed in its exact desired form, let's not forget the lesson of the Uniform Format Manual. It was enacted with the best of intentions, but once it was on the books, the door was left wide open, allowing a Supreme Court Justice to waltz right in and mandate a 10% paycut with the stroke of a pen.

More rules is never the answer. We've got so many now we can't keep track of them. You can't legislate morailty. Scumbags will do what scumbags will do.

"Hell, there are no rules here -- we're trying to accomplish something. " - Thomas Edison