> when whoever wrote that line in the legislation dies or retires, the line enters a short review period where it's either renewed with a new author on the line to speak to it or is deprecated.

That seems like a great way to turn functional legislation into swiss cheese as one line at a time things are either kept or removed based on chance/circumstance and the whims of the current people in power.

Laws are collectively voted for as a complete package, and a law that worked and was passed as being acceptable can become useless, dangerous, and undesirable with a very small number of lines removed from them. I want lawmakers to spend their time focused on the entirety of a bill. Your idea would result in them fighting over who should or shouldn't be recorded as the official author of each and every line. We don't need nonsense like "Senator X will retire soon so Senator Y should author it!", or "I'll agree to author line 405 if you agree to author line 30!"

Your idea, like so many ideas where laws just fade away unless something happens to keep them, also sounds like a great way for you to lose longstanding freedoms and protections that should never be at risk of simply deprecating just because some one gets voted out or dies or retires.

The intent of a law should be clear from the text. It isn't always, but at least now it's possible. To have the intent of a law, or even worse the intent of specific lines within a law, subject to change at any time would make interrupting that law and establishing precedent a nightmare for the courts.

We really should have a system in place to help clear out old and unnecessary laws on the books, but this would be a terrible way to accomplish that.