Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Seen this quote recently, in some book about RISC-V.

That doesn't mean shorter is always better. When you take away necessary detail to make things shorter, you wind up with a shorter, less perfect law.

For instance, if the law was "No driving over 70mph on I-75", shortening the law to "No driving" isn't an improvement. And even if we maintain the detail and shorten to "No 70+mph driving @ I-75" it doesn't improve things.

Concise is good. shortness for shortness sake is not. We don't need to be playing code golf with laws.

Shorter makes it harder to stuff it full of pork.

People who trust government often want general laws that give the state maximal flexibility and power. Such laws can be very short, e.g. "Let there be justice." Think of it as negotiating your three wishes with an adversarial genie. You might find yourself adding a lot of detail.