You elected them to write new laws. They’re letting corporations do it instead(publicintegrity.org)
publicintegrity.org
You elected them to write new laws. They’re letting corporations do it instead
https://publicintegrity.org/state-politics/copy-paste-legislate/you-elected-them-to-write-new-laws-theyre-letting-corporations-do-it-instead/
7 comments
I can't theoretically put my finger on it, either, but one antipattern that often shows up is a focussed minority with high incentives to pilfer from a larger majority, at the net expense of society.
An example being corruption, where one person might make small gains, at a much larger total cost to society. That cost, however, is amortised over even more people, leaving nobody sufficiently incentivised to fight it. This pattern is everywhere. NRA, mining companies' low cost rights to minerals, NIMBYs...
Concretely:
> Rather than getting all swoony about ALEC, wouldn't it make more sense just to fund more countervailing model legislation?
There is less money there, and money is what drives people to go above and beyond. Good people (aka most people) will play the game as best they can. Incentivised people, will change the game to win. It's a different mentality, you can't expect them to compete.
This is an inherent weakness in democracy as I know it, and lobbying is an incredibly powerful tool in the hands of these groups. The only moderating factors I know of are class action lawsuits, and the ombudsman. And now Twitter, for all its faults.
But are they separable? Can you get one without the other? I'm not clear on this, yet.
(not trying to make a judgement call on alec specifically, just going off of TFA here)
An example being corruption, where one person might make small gains, at a much larger total cost to society. That cost, however, is amortised over even more people, leaving nobody sufficiently incentivised to fight it. This pattern is everywhere. NRA, mining companies' low cost rights to minerals, NIMBYs...
Concretely:
> Rather than getting all swoony about ALEC, wouldn't it make more sense just to fund more countervailing model legislation?
There is less money there, and money is what drives people to go above and beyond. Good people (aka most people) will play the game as best they can. Incentivised people, will change the game to win. It's a different mentality, you can't expect them to compete.
This is an inherent weakness in democracy as I know it, and lobbying is an incredibly powerful tool in the hands of these groups. The only moderating factors I know of are class action lawsuits, and the ombudsman. And now Twitter, for all its faults.
But are they separable? Can you get one without the other? I'm not clear on this, yet.
(not trying to make a judgement call on alec specifically, just going off of TFA here)
Sure, that's the general pattern of diffuse vs concentrated interests, and it's a real problem, but it's orthogonal to model legislation.
Don't you think model legislation is a weapon with disproportionate power in the hands of concentrated interests, versus being more lacklustre for the diffuse?
Anything that exacerbates this problem is something we would want to avoid, no?
Anything that exacerbates this problem is something we would want to avoid, no?
No, I don't think that; I think that, if anything, ALEC marginally reduces the ultimate "potential" power of corporate lobbies, since, again, it's legislation that's submitted in multiple state houses and is at least theoretically traceable.
What I think really alarms people about ALEC is that it represents an uncomfortable level of organization on the part of corporate conservative lobbyists. ALEC is a way of getting a lot done fast. But if there wasn't ALEC and there wasn't model legislation, they'd simply organize in other ways. I think it is generally true that corporatist conservatives out-organize progressives, and I think that is a problem, but I don't think it's realistic or plausible to suggest that the solution is to "de-organize" them.
What I think really alarms people about ALEC is that it represents an uncomfortable level of organization on the part of corporate conservative lobbyists. ALEC is a way of getting a lot done fast. But if there wasn't ALEC and there wasn't model legislation, they'd simply organize in other ways. I think it is generally true that corporatist conservatives out-organize progressives, and I think that is a problem, but I don't think it's realistic or plausible to suggest that the solution is to "de-organize" them.
>I'm never clear on why I'm supposed to be upset about model legislation. [...] Moreover, especially on technical matters, it seems likely that private-sourced model legislation would be a superior starting point than whatever leg' staff would come up with themselves.
The problem is that the legislation will address issues of a specific group of stakeholders, those that participated in the process, to the detriment of others who did not. Even when other parties comment, by the time the bulk of the framework is in place, momentum is against the new voices in the process. This bias is consistent in industry model legislation - but there are other forms of model legislation that don't suffer the same risk.
Since funding is a prerequisite of concerted professional co-ordination, this means as we move to a situation where model legislation is more dominant, we're systemically favoring groups that are already very resourced. In essence we're only democratizing legislation to incumbents, which means we aren't democratizing it at all.
This sounds very theoretical, but it's anything but. I've gone through records of various industry groups as they put together legislative agendas. Once you see how self serving the language and framework is, the risks become very clear. This isn't to say that industry shouldn't comment on legislation or provide input on
The problem is that the legislation will address issues of a specific group of stakeholders, those that participated in the process, to the detriment of others who did not. Even when other parties comment, by the time the bulk of the framework is in place, momentum is against the new voices in the process. This bias is consistent in industry model legislation - but there are other forms of model legislation that don't suffer the same risk.
Since funding is a prerequisite of concerted professional co-ordination, this means as we move to a situation where model legislation is more dominant, we're systemically favoring groups that are already very resourced. In essence we're only democratizing legislation to incumbents, which means we aren't democratizing it at all.
This sounds very theoretical, but it's anything but. I've gone through records of various industry groups as they put together legislative agendas. Once you see how self serving the language and framework is, the risks become very clear. This isn't to say that industry shouldn't comment on legislation or provide input on
I'm not sure you'll find them upsetting, but I have a few thoughts:
1. Imagine a scenario where we need <legislation> that recognizes the needs/desires/opinions/opportunities/suffering of multiple constituencies and at least tries to weigh all of those against additional concerns like the constitutionality, budget (including potential public legal costs/liabilities of defending the legislation and rectifying any damage it may cause), broader public good, etc.
Outside of scenarios where <legislation> will only impact the single constituency proposing the legislation, it's hard to imagine the broad public good or the interests of any other constituencies will often be well-served by any <legislation> written by any single constituency.
2. At least in the U.S., one theoretical benefit of our multi-layered system of competing legislative bodies is that different people will approach similar problems in different ways. In the short run, some of these will fail, and some people will suffer these failures. In the longer run, we at least have the opportunity of more quickly converging on battle-tested solutions that didn't fail elsewhere. When our first swings at real problems are monoculture, we're squandering that space for innovation.
3. When outside groups play a big role in writing legislation, it seems one of their few collective interests may be optimizing for legislators who will sponsor or vote for said legislation without asking too many questions or making too many changes. I imagine this skillset has little overlap with the skills needed to craft the sort of legislation mentioned near the end of #1 above. If so, there's a risk this practice will progressively optimize for legislators that aren't capable of writing that kind of legislation even when it's absolutely essential. Funding countervailing model legislation would only accelerate this.
1. Imagine a scenario where we need <legislation> that recognizes the needs/desires/opinions/opportunities/suffering of multiple constituencies and at least tries to weigh all of those against additional concerns like the constitutionality, budget (including potential public legal costs/liabilities of defending the legislation and rectifying any damage it may cause), broader public good, etc.
Outside of scenarios where <legislation> will only impact the single constituency proposing the legislation, it's hard to imagine the broad public good or the interests of any other constituencies will often be well-served by any <legislation> written by any single constituency.
2. At least in the U.S., one theoretical benefit of our multi-layered system of competing legislative bodies is that different people will approach similar problems in different ways. In the short run, some of these will fail, and some people will suffer these failures. In the longer run, we at least have the opportunity of more quickly converging on battle-tested solutions that didn't fail elsewhere. When our first swings at real problems are monoculture, we're squandering that space for innovation.
3. When outside groups play a big role in writing legislation, it seems one of their few collective interests may be optimizing for legislators who will sponsor or vote for said legislation without asking too many questions or making too many changes. I imagine this skillset has little overlap with the skills needed to craft the sort of legislation mentioned near the end of #1 above. If so, there's a risk this practice will progressively optimize for legislators that aren't capable of writing that kind of legislation even when it's absolutely essential. Funding countervailing model legislation would only accelerate this.
Right, I'm a little concerned that I'm giving the impression that I think ALEC itself is a good thing, which I do not. Yes, of course, we should be suspicious of bills with ALEC origins! But at the same time, progressive (or centrist or reasonable conservatives or libertarians or bicyclists or home distillers or what-have-you) should be drafting their own model bills, not alarming themselves that other model bills exist.
I'm not really criticizing the story here, and if you look downthread you'll see a participant in it talking up some really interesting work they're doing to surface and trace model bills, which is great and valuable.
I'm not really criticizing the story here, and if you look downthread you'll see a participant in it talking up some really interesting work they're doing to surface and trace model bills, which is great and valuable.
Sure. I'm just saying something like: it's good to be conscientious of the habits and convenience paths (i.e., feedback loops) we develop, and of those our actions incentivize others to develop.
Some people who get fired at the behest of the Tweet-mob certainly deserve their fate. But I think habituating organizations to firing people in response to Tweet-mobs could create a real hellscape.
If my response is to try to bend the ratio of people sacked to sate the Tweet-mob towards my personal beliefs about who deserves a good firing, I'm only helping habituate organizations to appeasing Tweet-mobs.
Some people who get fired at the behest of the Tweet-mob certainly deserve their fate. But I think habituating organizations to firing people in response to Tweet-mobs could create a real hellscape.
If my response is to try to bend the ratio of people sacked to sate the Tweet-mob towards my personal beliefs about who deserves a good firing, I'm only helping habituate organizations to appeasing Tweet-mobs.
Funding the opposition is great. However, if there are profits to be made if a law is passed, and zero profits to be made if a law is not passed, there will likely be no companies all that interested in helping ensure the stoppage of the law.
And people who may care very much about stopping it may work at a company who wants a law passed. The people who work at the company have much less spending money than the company itself to devote to promoting such legislation.
And people who may care very much about stopping it may work at a company who wants a law passed. The people who work at the company have much less spending money than the company itself to devote to promoting such legislation.
Who's to say model legislation needs to be funded solely by corporations? SIX has no corporate sponsors.
That's the great part about funding legislation - whoever has more money to spend, wins. And guess who has the most spending money in the US.
To go along with what you are saying, here is an example of model legislation that I would guess most HNers would support.
Reclaim Invention Act by the Electronic Frontier Foundation which prevents state funded universities from selling patents to trolls.
https://www.eff.org/reclaim-invention/legislation
Here you have an organization which cares deeply about an issue, using their resources to come up with a bill that they believe would solve it. I would not think a state legislature was abdicating their responsibility if they introduced legislation based on the EFF model. In fact, I would be a lot more comfortable than if they tried to come up with legislation starting from a blank slate.
Reclaim Invention Act by the Electronic Frontier Foundation which prevents state funded universities from selling patents to trolls.
https://www.eff.org/reclaim-invention/legislation
Here you have an organization which cares deeply about an issue, using their resources to come up with a bill that they believe would solve it. I would not think a state legislature was abdicating their responsibility if they introduced legislation based on the EFF model. In fact, I would be a lot more comfortable than if they tried to come up with legislation starting from a blank slate.
I think that what you describe would be great if it was all done out in the open. What ALEC (and similar organizations on both sides of the aisle) have done is basically "White Label" legislation favorable to their backers and then distribute it across the country.
I suspect that the people of the dozens of states taking up these laws that are extremely favorable to some bad actors would like to know where the laws came from. States and Federal bodies are fighting FOIAs all over the country to hide the origins of some questionable laws which gives the premise a very unseemly feel.
I suspect that the people of the dozens of states taking up these laws that are extremely favorable to some bad actors would like to know where the laws came from. States and Federal bodies are fighting FOIAs all over the country to hide the origins of some questionable laws which gives the premise a very unseemly feel.
Yes, that is the idea. But you can "white label" legislation too. What's stopping "you" (in the broader sense) from simply competing with ALEC?
Politicians are good at getting elected, and OK at being, at least for some limited tenure, broadly receptive to some set of identifiable principles or goals that people vote for. But that doesn't mean they're good at drafting the actual laws, or, for that matter, recruiting and managing the people who are.
And as regards the malign influence of corrupt special interests --- at least model legislation is potentially traceable. How is it better for a chemical company and a legislative staff to strike a deal in a smoke-filled back room and then have the staff write a bill de novo?
Politicians are good at getting elected, and OK at being, at least for some limited tenure, broadly receptive to some set of identifiable principles or goals that people vote for. But that doesn't mean they're good at drafting the actual laws, or, for that matter, recruiting and managing the people who are.
And as regards the malign influence of corrupt special interests --- at least model legislation is potentially traceable. How is it better for a chemical company and a legislative staff to strike a deal in a smoke-filled back room and then have the staff write a bill de novo?
> Politicians are good at getting elected, and OK at being, at least for some limited tenure, broadly receptive to some set of identifiable principles or goals that people vote for. But that doesn't mean they're good at drafting the actual laws, or, for that matter, recruiting and managing the people who are.
I understand that legislators are voted in as a popularity contest, and that new legislators especially may not be good at the craft of writing laws. However, I feel like if we can't even trust these elected officials to be able to recruit and manage capable individuals who can write good laws, how can we expect our elected officials to recruit and manage capable individuals who can critically evaluate proposed model legislation?
If we can, I don't see how the skill set of the legislator is substantially different in these two cases. If we can't, then we are essentially admitting that interest groups should be able to convince legislators to pass laws on merits other than the bill's quality. In that case, I don't know what role the legislators are even performing in this system.
In my view, the point of democracy and its ideals of equality (e.g. one person, one vote) are to protect less powerful classes from more powerful ones. If our solution to the problem of model legislation is to throw our own money in the other direction, we will just end up with rich groups fighting battles with each other with little oversight from the rest of the population.
I understand that legislators are voted in as a popularity contest, and that new legislators especially may not be good at the craft of writing laws. However, I feel like if we can't even trust these elected officials to be able to recruit and manage capable individuals who can write good laws, how can we expect our elected officials to recruit and manage capable individuals who can critically evaluate proposed model legislation?
If we can, I don't see how the skill set of the legislator is substantially different in these two cases. If we can't, then we are essentially admitting that interest groups should be able to convince legislators to pass laws on merits other than the bill's quality. In that case, I don't know what role the legislators are even performing in this system.
In my view, the point of democracy and its ideals of equality (e.g. one person, one vote) are to protect less powerful classes from more powerful ones. If our solution to the problem of model legislation is to throw our own money in the other direction, we will just end up with rich groups fighting battles with each other with little oversight from the rest of the population.
I guess I'm just not seeing how it was ever realistic to think that legislators and their staffs were going to be the best authors of bills (rather than the best arbiters of what bills to pass, where I think there's a clearer case that they're the best option out of a whole untidy mess of worse options), or why competition from outside sources of drafting legislation would be a bad thing.
I don't think there is any reason to believe that legislators are the individuals with the most talent at drafting law. It's probably some academic or lawyer somewhere. But, I do believe that the process that gets legislators into that position is designed to provide oversight over them, and allow for a metric that can prevent the worst people being chosen. Just because someone better at writing laws exists, does not mean that we have a better metric of choosing them than the democratic vote. And for them to then shirk not just their duty to write the laws, but also their duty to provide meaningful oversight over the bills that do get proposed and passed, implies to me that there are real problems.
I have no problem with interested organizations writing draft bills and publicizing those. What I do have a problem with is politicians taking those whole-cloth and implementing them in law without consulting other stakeholders, especially when money or influence changes hands.
I have no problem with interested organizations writing draft bills and publicizing those. What I do have a problem with is politicians taking those whole-cloth and implementing them in law without consulting other stakeholders, especially when money or influence changes hands.
> Yes, that is the idea. But you can "white label" legislation too. What's stopping "you" (in the broader sense) from simply competing with ALEC?
I lack the resources to compete with large corporations.
Are you arguing that we must all join large well funded organizations in order to have a voice in our laws?
I lack the resources to compete with large corporations.
Are you arguing that we must all join large well funded organizations in order to have a voice in our laws?
Lobbying in general is problematic (though I think it's less clear-cut than I think people assume it is). But I'm clearly meant to be especially aghast at model legislation, which, to my eyes, seems strictly superior to the mode of lobbying where the lobbyists pay to have legislators write their bills for them.
To me, it feels like the complete lack of a deliberative process implies that the legislators are not actually providing meaningful oversight in the slightest.
Sure, oftentimes special interest groups will understand an issue in much more detail than a legislator (who almost by definition must be a jack-of-all-trades). But, it should also be clear that lobbying groups will very often use this knowledge for their personal gain, at the expense of other stakeholders. In my opinion, a good legislator would critically evaluate legislation, make changes, consult with other stakeholders, etc. Changes to the legislation imply an interest in the effects of the legislation (good or bad). But to instead allow legislation to be signed with your name with no, or few, changes to the text, shows that the legislator is willing to give the lobbyist everything they want, with no deliberation or push back.
That feels particularly suspect to me.
Sure, oftentimes special interest groups will understand an issue in much more detail than a legislator (who almost by definition must be a jack-of-all-trades). But, it should also be clear that lobbying groups will very often use this knowledge for their personal gain, at the expense of other stakeholders. In my opinion, a good legislator would critically evaluate legislation, make changes, consult with other stakeholders, etc. Changes to the legislation imply an interest in the effects of the legislation (good or bad). But to instead allow legislation to be signed with your name with no, or few, changes to the text, shows that the legislator is willing to give the lobbyist everything they want, with no deliberation or push back.
That feels particularly suspect to me.
Wait. That’s an argument not in evidence either. Why is lobbying bad? The same arguments apply for model legislation. Legislators can’t be experts in everything they legislate so it behooves the people with vested interests & expertise to lobby their positions.
Yeah, like I said, I think the lobbying debate is more complicated than it seems at first blush, but I'll stipulate here that there are patterns of toxic lobbying that are worth worrying about. I just don't think model legislation is an indicator of those patterns.
> And as regards the malign influence of corrupt special interests --- at least model legislation is potentially traceable. How is it better for a chemical company and a legislative staff to strike a deal in a smoke-filled back room and then have the staff write a bill de novo?
If Chevron + Exxon + BP pool their resources to write model legislation, they can very likely create 'bulletproof' protections for themselves that can be pushed to all 50 states simultaneously (or as many as have receptive legislatures). If they're on a state-by-state negotiation, it adds friction that I personally feel is very healthy.
This is a similar argument about Citizen's United -- everyone has a right to speak but Goldman Sachs can afford much more speech than the average person...
If Chevron + Exxon + BP pool their resources to write model legislation, they can very likely create 'bulletproof' protections for themselves that can be pushed to all 50 states simultaneously (or as many as have receptive legislatures). If they're on a state-by-state negotiation, it adds friction that I personally feel is very healthy.
This is a similar argument about Citizen's United -- everyone has a right to speak but Goldman Sachs can afford much more speech than the average person...
Yes, that is a reason to be skeptical of ALEC bills. My point isn't that you should be happy with ALEC. My point is that model legislation is not in and of itself a bad thing; model bills are good or bad on their own merits.
Rich people shouldn't just push legislation that benefits them. It's clearly a negative to our country. ALEC has already shown they are not helping things. One prominent example is their legislation that makes it illegal for communities to build their own internet access, regardless of how undeserved they are. This does no one any good, except for the comcasts of the world.
ALEC is evil, like the Koch brother's legislative activities, evil in that they only serve the interests of wealthy monied groups, perpetuating their power.
ALEC is evil, like the Koch brother's legislative activities, evil in that they only serve the interests of wealthy monied groups, perpetuating their power.
Laws should be simple enough to be understood plainly by everyone - fundamental due process / equal protection. In general writing is easier than understanding, so writing laws should be really easy.
Allowing corporations to write complex laws inherently creates many specific loopholes that essentially bless and fortify their model (regulatory capture), helping capital to coalesce. Responding by encouraging one opposing viewpoint to likewise throw resources into opposition doesn't actually push back against the complexity itself, but rather just encourages ever more of it as each side tries to sneak things past the other's limit of understanding.
Allowing corporations to write complex laws inherently creates many specific loopholes that essentially bless and fortify their model (regulatory capture), helping capital to coalesce. Responding by encouraging one opposing viewpoint to likewise throw resources into opposition doesn't actually push back against the complexity itself, but rather just encourages ever more of it as each side tries to sneak things past the other's limit of understanding.
I think that makes sense if you're an extreme libertarian (left or right) or an an-cap, but it doesn't seem like it would be persuasive to anyone else. One reason laws are complicated is because the world is pretty complicated.
I'll confirm a bias of libertarian, but the argument is based on widely-held concepts.
The fundamental ideas are due process (basic requirement of providing notice as to what is and is not illegal) and equal protection (not having a trapdoor in the law for parties that possess the right knowledge). I'd say that laws should straightforward enough that say 80% of the people affected by them can follow them with a little effort. The current state that most everyone must to pay a lawyer to interpret what they can and cannot do is an ongoing travesty of justice, of the same vein as the racket the NFPA et al are trying to run of prohibiting people from being able to even access the law without paying.
And yes the world is complex, but the entire point of a market economy versus central planning is to encourage complexity to remain outside the kernel so that incorrect or aging models will fail gracefully (creative destruction) rather than calcify and become overprescriptive. Allowing businesses to closely transcribe their specific business practices into long term law directly undermines this.
The fundamental ideas are due process (basic requirement of providing notice as to what is and is not illegal) and equal protection (not having a trapdoor in the law for parties that possess the right knowledge). I'd say that laws should straightforward enough that say 80% of the people affected by them can follow them with a little effort. The current state that most everyone must to pay a lawyer to interpret what they can and cannot do is an ongoing travesty of justice, of the same vein as the racket the NFPA et al are trying to run of prohibiting people from being able to even access the law without paying.
And yes the world is complex, but the entire point of a market economy versus central planning is to encourage complexity to remain outside the kernel so that incorrect or aging models will fail gracefully (creative destruction) rather than calcify and become overprescriptive. Allowing businesses to closely transcribe their specific business practices into long term law directly undermines this.
> Rather than getting all swoony about ALEC, wouldn't it make more sense just to fund more countervailing model legislation?
You write as if the legislators are parsers just waiting to gobble up arbitrary input.
According to the article they pass model legislation in large part because it gets them a nice track record for later walks through revolving doors in the private sector.
In your fantasy who is the organization you help to draft models? And what is the high-paying private sector lobbying/consulting job that awaits the legislator who built a track-record by pushing through that org's legislation?
You write as if the legislators are parsers just waiting to gobble up arbitrary input.
According to the article they pass model legislation in large part because it gets them a nice track record for later walks through revolving doors in the private sector.
In your fantasy who is the organization you help to draft models? And what is the high-paying private sector lobbying/consulting job that awaits the legislator who built a track-record by pushing through that org's legislation?
SIX would be the obvious answer, flawed only in that it exists in the real world and not a “fantasy”.
ALEC works because interstate/international corporations with telco-level budgets fund the model legislation, fund the lobbying effort, and fund the post-political careers of the politicians who push through the model legislation.
Who plays the part of the telcos in your non-fantasy?
Also-- I've directly experienced the success of ALEC's part in banning muni wireless/fiber here in NC. What a similar level SIX success? Or, switching back to fantasy-land, what type of SIX success do I have to look forward to in the near future?
Who plays the part of the telcos in your non-fantasy?
Also-- I've directly experienced the success of ALEC's part in banning muni wireless/fiber here in NC. What a similar level SIX success? Or, switching back to fantasy-land, what type of SIX success do I have to look forward to in the near future?
Notwithstanding that the article was actually about politicians not representing their citizens’ interests and not about what amounts to the free speech rights of corporations, your suggested solution of more free speech belies the fact that the funding of this ‘free’ speech isn’t in any sense equal. Moreover in a republic, we are already funding our representatives to speak on our behalf.
Even given your premise it's still disgusting for model legislation to be incorrectly attributed and/or summarized and also for witness testifying about to basically be undercover fake cronies.
Many politicians get more money/benefits/bribes from the corporations pushing those laws then from the salary paid by the citizens... that's the main problem.
Part of the problem is that model legislation has increasingly been viewed as a means of circumventing the negative consequences of resource-limited state legislatures. Writing legislation is a very time-intensive effort that relies heavily on expert staff. Staff budgets have stagnated or, in many cases, decreased. And they were never high to begin with. In most states, legislator pay itself is low[0] to begin with as well. Most states pay their legislators as if it's a part-time job, but when you consider the various demands on their time in addition to the need to find a way to support themselves financially as well, it's laughable to expect them to be able to compensate for staffing limitations. Assuming, of course, that they have the background to actually craft legislation themselves. Model legislation seemingly offers legislators a path out of the darkness.
But it's not just about writing the legislation; model legislation often comes as a sort of turnkey solution, offering analysis as well. And that's the particularly dangerous part. Because of their limited resources, state legislators have to rely more and more on the expertise of those providing the model legislation at all steps of the process rather than their own. It's not just about outsourcing the actual writing of a bill. How legislators understand model legislation and the potentially complex and nuanced consequences of it is being shaped by those who wrote it, and often have vested interests of their own.
It's not just a state problem. It's also prevalent at the federal level, where median pay for legislative staff has decreased significantly in recent decades and the number of staffers has stayed stagnant in the face of increased workloads.[1] Another source estimates that the percentage of "House personal staffers" based in DC has decreased from three-quarters in 1976 to half in 2005; the problem being that the legislative staffers re the ones working in DC. Committee staff have been especially hard hit.[2] So when someone comes in to lobby for a bill that they happen to have written out for you to consider, it's easy to fall back on the idea "well, they know their industry." Particularly because they so often don't have ready access to a comparable, independent knowledge base to help them.
There was an interesting article I read a week or two ago on the subject of legislative staffing woes, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. If I do, I'll reply with a link.
0. https://www.npr.org/2017/01/09/508237086/low-pay-in-state-le...
1. https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2015/8/21/9184197/congressiona...
2. http://sunlightfoundation.com/policy/documents/keeping_congr...
But it's not just about writing the legislation; model legislation often comes as a sort of turnkey solution, offering analysis as well. And that's the particularly dangerous part. Because of their limited resources, state legislators have to rely more and more on the expertise of those providing the model legislation at all steps of the process rather than their own. It's not just about outsourcing the actual writing of a bill. How legislators understand model legislation and the potentially complex and nuanced consequences of it is being shaped by those who wrote it, and often have vested interests of their own.
It's not just a state problem. It's also prevalent at the federal level, where median pay for legislative staff has decreased significantly in recent decades and the number of staffers has stayed stagnant in the face of increased workloads.[1] Another source estimates that the percentage of "House personal staffers" based in DC has decreased from three-quarters in 1976 to half in 2005; the problem being that the legislative staffers re the ones working in DC. Committee staff have been especially hard hit.[2] So when someone comes in to lobby for a bill that they happen to have written out for you to consider, it's easy to fall back on the idea "well, they know their industry." Particularly because they so often don't have ready access to a comparable, independent knowledge base to help them.
There was an interesting article I read a week or two ago on the subject of legislative staffing woes, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. If I do, I'll reply with a link.
0. https://www.npr.org/2017/01/09/508237086/low-pay-in-state-le...
1. https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2015/8/21/9184197/congressiona...
2. http://sunlightfoundation.com/policy/documents/keeping_congr...
Model legislation is written by groups with money. It is pushed by groups with money. It is passed because moneyed interests get it passed; so that the laws get them more money.
Which laws should get passed? Should they be the best for the electorate, or the best for whichever company has the most money?
It seems like you want "experts" who oppose your best interests to make the rules. What an odd thing to want.
Which laws should get passed? Should they be the best for the electorate, or the best for whichever company has the most money?
It seems like you want "experts" who oppose your best interests to make the rules. What an odd thing to want.
No. What I'm saying is, to the extent that happens, "model legislation" doesn't enable it; in fact, if anything, it (marginally) increases transparency by making at least some of those influence attempts traceable (this happens by design, since the point of ALEC-style model legislation is to write it once and then present it in multiple state houses).
If the question is, "do you like ALEC", the answer in my case is "obviously no" (I wasted a bunch of money in the last election cycle if my goal was to support ALEC). But I don't see what's problematic about this particular mechanism ALEC uses, and I think it would probably be better if more interest groups --- nonprofit, public, corporate, what have you) adopted it.
Sort of like the conversations people have about the Federalist Society (the back-bench for potential conservative federal judicial candidates) --- seeing the Federalist Society as a shadowy malign influence just seems silly to me. It seems obvious that the proper response to the Federalists is to stand up a countervailing progressive judicial network --- and, of course, that exists (it's the ACS); it's just much worse at marketing itself.
Meanwhile, it's not as if anyone is unclear on who these organizations are! No Democratic Senator endorses a Federalist Society pick because it came from the Federalists! No Democratic state representative swoons over an ALEC bill! If your local state senator doesn't know who ALEC is, they're incompetent and need to be booted out of office.
If the question is, "do you like ALEC", the answer in my case is "obviously no" (I wasted a bunch of money in the last election cycle if my goal was to support ALEC). But I don't see what's problematic about this particular mechanism ALEC uses, and I think it would probably be better if more interest groups --- nonprofit, public, corporate, what have you) adopted it.
Sort of like the conversations people have about the Federalist Society (the back-bench for potential conservative federal judicial candidates) --- seeing the Federalist Society as a shadowy malign influence just seems silly to me. It seems obvious that the proper response to the Federalists is to stand up a countervailing progressive judicial network --- and, of course, that exists (it's the ACS); it's just much worse at marketing itself.
Meanwhile, it's not as if anyone is unclear on who these organizations are! No Democratic Senator endorses a Federalist Society pick because it came from the Federalists! No Democratic state representative swoons over an ALEC bill! If your local state senator doesn't know who ALEC is, they're incompetent and need to be booted out of office.
Model legislation by ALEC or similar orgs is less traceable in influence, because ALEC per se is not subject to procedural openness, lobbying (directed at ALEC), or other controls intended to provide transparency in lawmaking and influences on it. ALEC has also been credibly accused of being a venue for evasion of state transparency laws by it's legislator members.
I guess I just start from the premise that a bill originating in ALEC is (a) going to be hard-partisan conservative and (b) overwhelmingly likely to serve the interests of an ALEC sponsor corporation; once you know the bill comes from ALEC, you know most of what you need to know, don't you? What do I care who's "lobbying" ALEC?
On the flip side, if Purdue Pharma spends several years and several tens of thousands of dollars lobbying a conservative congressperson, who later amends a health care bill to serve Purdue, what indicator do I have that the amendment they sponsored was "sponsored" by Purdue?
On the flip side, if Purdue Pharma spends several years and several tens of thousands of dollars lobbying a conservative congressperson, who later amends a health care bill to serve Purdue, what indicator do I have that the amendment they sponsored was "sponsored" by Purdue?
> overwhelmingly likely to serve the interests of an ALEC sponsor corporation
In a number of cases, corporations have only been publicly identified as having ties with ALEC when they publicly cut ties with ALEC.
Aside from corporations that seek recognition as sponsors or have people in active public roles on ALEC committees, there's no systematic disclosure of ALEC ties. ALEC membership is confidential.
> On the flip side, if Purdue Pharma spends several years and several tens of thousands of dollars lobbying a conservative congressperson, who later amends a health care bill to serve Purdue, what indicator do I have that the amendment they sponsored was "sponsored" by Purdue?
The documentation of the duration and expenditures on lobbying (and any donations), a thing we don't have systematically, with legal penalties for failure to report, with regard to corporate involvement with ALEC.
In a number of cases, corporations have only been publicly identified as having ties with ALEC when they publicly cut ties with ALEC.
Aside from corporations that seek recognition as sponsors or have people in active public roles on ALEC committees, there's no systematic disclosure of ALEC ties. ALEC membership is confidential.
> On the flip side, if Purdue Pharma spends several years and several tens of thousands of dollars lobbying a conservative congressperson, who later amends a health care bill to serve Purdue, what indicator do I have that the amendment they sponsored was "sponsored" by Purdue?
The documentation of the duration and expenditures on lobbying (and any donations), a thing we don't have systematically, with legal penalties for failure to report, with regard to corporate involvement with ALEC.
The whole point of making it transparent and traceable is to end the influence of money on politics. ALEC's efforts are transparent because they are so certain that they will get away with it. If people are successful in fighting them, they will just use their resources to hide their work better, which they can do because they still have a lot of money behind them.
Again, the problem is that we are letting money decide our laws instead of real measures of goodness. I'm glad that progressive groups are fighting ALEC--it's the best solution we have so far--but on a macro scale fighting money with more money is surrendering to the problem.
Again, the problem is that we are letting money decide our laws instead of real measures of goodness. I'm glad that progressive groups are fighting ALEC--it's the best solution we have so far--but on a macro scale fighting money with more money is surrendering to the problem.
"Get away with" what, exactly? They're drafting conservative, business-friendly bills, which is what Republicans generally do. How does an ALEC origin "hide" the merits and demerits of a bill? Doesn't it in fact make them far clearer?
Where are you getting the idea that ALEC is trying to be transparent about about writing these laws? The article is clear that it takes some digging to uncover these bills:
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.
The investigation examined nearly 1 million bills in all 50 states and Congress using a computer algorithm developed to detect similarities in language. That search – powered by the equivalent of 150 computers that ran nonstop for months – compared known model legislation with bills introduced by lawmakers.
There isn't some tagline "this bill contributed by ALEC!"
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.
The investigation examined nearly 1 million bills in all 50 states and Congress using a computer algorithm developed to detect similarities in language. That search – powered by the equivalent of 150 computers that ran nonstop for months – compared known model legislation with bills introduced by lawmakers.
There isn't some tagline "this bill contributed by ALEC!"
FWIW - ALEC does make all their model bills available online: https://www.alec.org/model-policy/
But they are hardly the only player, we were interested in not only identifying how far these known model bills are going but also surface bills from groups we don't know about!
Also, not all model bills are necessarily malicious - we found hundreds of bills that were almost identical but were just trying to standardize things like how we license nurses or other healthcare practitioners.
But they are hardly the only player, we were interested in not only identifying how far these known model bills are going but also surface bills from groups we don't know about!
Also, not all model bills are necessarily malicious - we found hundreds of bills that were almost identical but were just trying to standardize things like how we license nurses or other healthcare practitioners.
Right, if you look elsewhere on the thread I've made this point already: the whole idea behind ALEC model legislation is to have it introduced in multiple state houses. There's no similarity search you can run for legislation "authentically" drafted by different congressional offices, and yet it's an article of faith on HN that corrupt bills are authored that way all the time.
more than 2,100 of those bills were signed into law
Hi everyone! I'm a news developer at the Center for Public Integrity. I worked on this project. Happy to answer any questions.
This project was basically an all-pairs text similarity problem. We were able to identify a lot of copycat legislation addressing a wide range of issues from e-cigarettes and prescription opiods to online sports betting, "religious freedom" and undocumented immigration. Some from previously known groups like ALEC and others from previously unknown interest groups.
We also have a public facing tool in the works that would allow anyone to track such measures in near real-time. We will be launching the tool and open sourcing the code in the coming weeks!
Also, do check out our launch story in this series about one such model bill that would allow car dealers to resell cars with active recalls. And keep an eye out for more stories about model legislation!
https://publicintegrity.org/state-politics/copy-paste-legisl...
This project was basically an all-pairs text similarity problem. We were able to identify a lot of copycat legislation addressing a wide range of issues from e-cigarettes and prescription opiods to online sports betting, "religious freedom" and undocumented immigration. Some from previously known groups like ALEC and others from previously unknown interest groups.
We also have a public facing tool in the works that would allow anyone to track such measures in near real-time. We will be launching the tool and open sourcing the code in the coming weeks!
Also, do check out our launch story in this series about one such model bill that would allow car dealers to resell cars with active recalls. And keep an eye out for more stories about model legislation!
https://publicintegrity.org/state-politics/copy-paste-legisl...
It goes something like this: corporations hire lobbyists, lobbyists write bills and hire former gov officials and judges to go over the proposed bills and catch any flaws in them. Then they lobby the current, elected officials and bribe them to sponsor the bills and put their names on them. Finally, they lobby the rest of the Congress to vote for the bill. And if they fail, they wait for a while, modify few things, get new politicians to sponsor them and the cycle repeats until they get what they want.
Corporate lobbying is nothing more than legalized corruption.
Even Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and Chairman had this to say on the topic:
>"The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists" to protect incumbent interests, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Atlantic editor James Bennet at the Washington Ideas Forum. "It's shocking how the system actually works."
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/googl...
Corporate lobbying is nothing more than legalized corruption.
Even Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and Chairman had this to say on the topic:
>"The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists" to protect incumbent interests, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Atlantic editor James Bennet at the Washington Ideas Forum. "It's shocking how the system actually works."
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/googl...
Related: Mancur Olson
"In his first book, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (1965), he theorized that what stimulates people to act in groups is incentive; members of large groups do not act in accordance with a common interest unless motivated by personal gain (economic, social, etc.). While small groups can act on shared objectives, large groups will not work towards shared objectives unless their individual members are sufficiently motivated.[3]
In 1982, he expanded the scope of his earlier work in an attempt to explain The Rise and Decline of Nations (1982). He argues that groups such as cotton-farmers, steel-producers, and labor unions have an incentive to form lobby groups and influence policies in their favor. These policies will tend to be protectionist, which will hurt economic growth; but because the benefits of such policies are concentrated, and their costs are diffused throughout the whole population, there will be little public resistance to them. As distributional coalitions accumulate, nations burdened by them will fall into economic decline. His work influenced the formulation of the Calmfors–Driffill hypothesis of collective bargaining.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancur_Olson
"In his first book, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (1965), he theorized that what stimulates people to act in groups is incentive; members of large groups do not act in accordance with a common interest unless motivated by personal gain (economic, social, etc.). While small groups can act on shared objectives, large groups will not work towards shared objectives unless their individual members are sufficiently motivated.[3]
In 1982, he expanded the scope of his earlier work in an attempt to explain The Rise and Decline of Nations (1982). He argues that groups such as cotton-farmers, steel-producers, and labor unions have an incentive to form lobby groups and influence policies in their favor. These policies will tend to be protectionist, which will hurt economic growth; but because the benefits of such policies are concentrated, and their costs are diffused throughout the whole population, there will be little public resistance to them. As distributional coalitions accumulate, nations burdened by them will fall into economic decline. His work influenced the formulation of the Calmfors–Driffill hypothesis of collective bargaining.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancur_Olson
We've had a small resurgence in support for protectionism in general recently, but outside the sugar industry, Olson didn't really predict the decades following 1982 very well, did he?
Does everyone remember the study from 2014 about American oligarchy? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...
Cycling the same story every 5 years isn't going to change things..
Cycling the same story every 5 years isn't going to change things..
FYI, the title is wrong, or at best misleading. Politicians are elected to be politicians. They outsource everything else.
Fun story, my wife almost took a job in our state capital to help edit laws. The team was employed by the state and was, to my knowledge, non partisan. They recieved drafts of bills, and their job, as lawyers, was basically to make sure that the punctuation was correct. What was interesting about the job, is that a well placed comma can have pretty major effects in how courts will interpret the law, and my wife was really looking forward to being able to shape law in these subtle ways.
Fun story, my wife almost took a job in our state capital to help edit laws. The team was employed by the state and was, to my knowledge, non partisan. They recieved drafts of bills, and their job, as lawyers, was basically to make sure that the punctuation was correct. What was interesting about the job, is that a well placed comma can have pretty major effects in how courts will interpret the law, and my wife was really looking forward to being able to shape law in these subtle ways.
Ah... the royal “they”. Both sides, etc.
Rather than getting all swoony about ALEC, wouldn't it make more sense just to fund more countervailing model legislation? Wouldn't that move the policy debate out of the arena of subjective feels and further into the realm of nuts-and-bolts decisions? Isn't that strictly more transparent than what happens now in bills that aren't based in any way on models?
Or, put it this way: in my lifetime I'm almost certainly going to have no chance of having a hand in any legislation drafted by the staff of any legislator. But I could reasonably hope to spend time getting involved with an organization that drafted and then promoted (cough lobbied for gasp) those bills. Doesn't model legislation ultimately democratize the process?
And, sure, it sucks that the "Asbestos Transparency Act" protects companies that might have asbestos liabilities. But it's not as if legislators can reasonably sign bills based solely on their titles, or that we as citizens don't have an obligation to read proposals when they're published. Or, for that matter, as if the laws that legislators themselves draft don't have egregiously misleading titles.
(Just for what it's worth, there's a progressive alternative to ALEC, SIX: https://stateinnovation.org/).