Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday April 14 2019, @09:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the this-is-my-shocked-face dept.

An investigation into nearly 1 million bills across all 50 US states showed a high proportion of proposed US laws being written by lobbyists. The investigation was based on computer analysis of the similarities in language used in the bills. Additionally, copycat legislation is a problem. That is where states copy-paste key parts of proposed legislation from each other, and often the original is can be traced back to lobbyists. Many tricks are used to increase acceptance of these bills such as use of deceptive titles, misleading endorsements, copied bills to override locally sourced bills, and more. The article includes several graphics showing the distribution of bad practices across the states.

A two-year investigation by USA TODAY, The Arizona Republic and the Center for Public Integrity reveals for the first time the extent to which special interests have infiltrated state legislatures using model legislation.

USA TODAY and the Republic found at least 10,000 bills almost entirely copied from model legislation were introduced nationwide in the past eight years, and more than 2,100 of those bills were signed into law.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 14 2019, @09:59PM (18 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday April 14 2019, @09:59PM (#829497)

    Outsourcing the legislative drafting work, what could be more American?

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=2, Touché=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday April 14 2019, @11:07PM (2 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Sunday April 14 2019, @11:07PM (#829519)

    These guys seem to agree. [northwestern.edu]

    After analyzing approximately 2,000 federal policy decisions over 20 years, Page and Gilens found that affluent Americans, corporations, and organized interest groups have been much more successful than ordinary Americans at getting their preferred policies passed.

    So not a new thing, and I suspect the people who run America are quite happy about that.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday April 14 2019, @11:46PM (1 child)

      by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Sunday April 14 2019, @11:46PM (#829532) Homepage Journal

      Somebody said, "oh, why’d you appoint a Rich Person to be in charge of the Economy?" I said, because that’s the kind of thinking we want. Winning!!!!

      • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:03AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:03AM (#829558)

        Why do you hate America?

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by driverless on Sunday April 14 2019, @11:18PM (1 child)

    by driverless (4770) on Sunday April 14 2019, @11:18PM (#829523)

    It's not just US law they're writing for themselves, they're doing the same with international treaties [theintercept.com].

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @02:40AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @02:40AM (#829602)

      the people that's not really from davos welcome you to global capitalism and encourage you to just call this democracy. also you better be at your desk tommorrow at 9 sharp to produce money for you exploiter

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 14 2019, @11:20PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 14 2019, @11:20PM (#829525)

    This outsourcing doesn't really bother me, as technically I could write the laws too and the legislature can't be experts on everything. However, I also am a firm believer in government transparency, which means that in the bill information, there needs to be disclosure as to the source of the text. Of course, unless all legislatures do the same, they will just get around that by passing it in one state and then having the disclosure in the other states read "based on the $such_and_such_law of $other_state."

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 15 2019, @01:35AM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday April 15 2019, @01:35AM (#829579)

      In the end, it doesn't really matter who wrote it. What matters is: what it says, how much money flows from where to where as a result, and who voted for it.

      Put together the money flows and the votes and a clear pattern should emerge of representatives acting to benefit their constituents. What we really need for transparency are red flags that go up when representatives do things that hurt their constituents.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Monday April 15 2019, @04:41AM (1 child)

      by krishnoid (1156) on Monday April 15 2019, @04:41AM (#829650)

      Washington D.C. [arstechnica.com] and Germany [wired.com] make their laws available under publicly accessible revision control, maybe more U.S. states could start doing this too.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Monday April 15 2019, @07:11AM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday April 15 2019, @07:11AM (#829713) Journal

        The German one is not an official government site, but the work of a single activist (and has had no updates since many years).

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @05:20AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @05:20AM (#829665)

      So let's see you write a law. First publish the text and then tell us who adopted it.... I won't be holding my breath btw.

      “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @07:40PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @07:40PM (#829989)

        Funny thing is, you are probably talking to one of the handful of people in my state who has done so. The State of Iowa uses the language I sent to my state senator and representative after the Equifax breach that makes credit freezes free for everyone. I also had a hand at writing legislation and administrative rules while working at the state affiliate of the ACLU.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @12:14AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @12:14AM (#829545)

    Back when the net neutrality BS started in North Carolina. You could call the DNC rep who "wrote" the law (yes you read that right). They let a Time Warner rep answer the phone and answer your questions.

    Once the RNC suddenly loved the bill after spending 2 years hating on it and the DNC suddenly hated it. That nailed it home so hard for me. We are getting played.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bussdriver on Monday April 15 2019, @01:10AM (3 children)

    by bussdriver (6876) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 15 2019, @01:10AM (#829563)

    You can tell somebody is extremely corrupt when they budget for NO STAFF necessary to create the laws or review them. The senate, house leadership that cuts budgets for their people do be able to do their job are always corrupt when they cut those staff budgets. Then you have each rep which can budget their money to hire a couple interns then misappropriate that money or they can pay actual decent staff the best wage they can afford. They should be able to hire well qualified staff but they are not able to do what they should because that can be called government waste! Despite the reality that so much waste and corruption happens as a result of poor staffing.

    Hell, we couldn't even out lawyer the banks when they destroyed the economy. Just like the elite want.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 15 2019, @01:37AM (2 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday April 15 2019, @01:37AM (#829580)

      I watched a crack dealer's lawyer run circles around the city attorneys for 10 years. He ran drugs and prostitutes out of his house all that time, 25 arrests a month, and they never managed to shut him down.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday April 15 2019, @04:42AM (1 child)

        by krishnoid (1156) on Monday April 15 2019, @04:42AM (#829651)

        Do you have some case numbers for this?

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:12AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:12AM (#829566)

    Outsourcing the legislative drafting work, what could be more American?

    More importantly, is anybody surprised by this? Anybody????

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by captain normal on Monday April 15 2019, @04:23AM

    by captain normal (2205) on Monday April 15 2019, @04:23AM (#829633)

    Well we do have the best government that money can buy. Unfortunately that may not necessarily be the best government for all of us.

    --
    When life isn't going right, go left.