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US Legislators Frequently Let Corporations Write Your Laws

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

canopic jug writes:

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.

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Original Submission

• Re:Who says Government isn't efficient? Re:Who says Government isn't efficient? (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.

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• Re:Who says Government isn't efficient? Re:Who says Government isn't efficient? (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!!!!

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  • Re:Who says Government isn't efficient? (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?

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