4 ms·

So frustrating that there is no easy way to apply the bill ‘diff’ to the underlying statute and then read the result. Legislative workflow is in serious need o

by gwright 10y ago

So frustrating that there is no easy way to apply the bill ‘diff’ to the underlying statute and then read the result. Legislative workflow is in serious need of some better tooling.

jaboutboul 10y ago
That's why they hire a billion aids and clerks
snarkyturtle 10y ago
You could diff it with previous versions of the bill using govtrack.us: * * last year: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr387/text#compare=336600:rds https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr387/text#compar... * year prior: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr387/text/ih#compare=292546:ih https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr387/text/ih#com...
- gwright 10y ago
  But that would be a diff between two diffs. Not sure that helps in understanding the effective change.
  - jimbo999 10y ago
    there is no magic for that... yet
    - monster2control 10y ago
      sounds like a cool coding challenge!!
Alex3917 10y ago
> Legislative workflow is in serious need of some better tooling. The CT legislature already has diffs on all of their legislation. So the tooling exists, congress.gov just hasn't implemented it.
elastic_church 10y ago
yeah, I've been thinking of this tool for about 7 years! First the entire US code would have to be on a git repo. And all the approved pull requests would also be there and you could roll it back to the very beginning. All the contributors would be the politicians. And all proposed bills would show what they modified. And the branch they came from would have all the other things. I like it because it would also be open to discussion and scrutiny. But transparency means a different thing to those people.
- roryisok 10y ago
  That is a fantastic idea. I'm not even American and I'd be fascinated by that. Every country should have this. During election time you could put in a candidate's name and see their history, what they voted for, any legislation they implemented etc. Truly open government. There probably is something like this for the EU Parliament but buried somewhere that nobody can find
  - literallycancer 10y ago
    I'd be surprised if this wasn't already done in most countries. Checked my own out of curiosity, and they log all proposals, all votes on them, and provide the amendment text including how the new text would look with the changes applied.[1][2] Granted, it's not as easy to go back and see all the changes to a certain law, but the data is there. 1 - http://www.psp.cz/sqw/historie.sqw?o=7&t=964 http://www.psp.cz/sqw/historie.sqw?o=7&t=964 2 - http://www.psp.cz/sqw/phlasa.sqw?o=7&s=54&pg=17 http://www.psp.cz/sqw/phlasa.sqw?o=7&s=54&pg=17
    - elastic_church 10y ago
      Yeah it really is not. Should also be standard affair for state and municipal governments and all regulators.
- Drup 10y ago
  This exist for (part of) the french legal code: https://github.com/steeve/france.code-civil https://github.com/steeve/france.code-civil, https://github.com/Legilibre/Archeo-Lex https://github.com/Legilibre/Archeo-Lex This uses open data published by the governments at https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/ https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/

by gwright 10y ago

So frustrating that there is no easy way to apply the bill ‘diff’ to the underlying statute and then read the result. Legislative workflow is in serious need of some better tooling.

jaboutboul 10y ago

That's why they hire a billion aids and clerks

snarkyturtle 10y ago

You could diff it with previous versions of the bill using govtrack.us: * * last year: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr387/text#compare=336600:rds https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr387/text#compar... * year prior: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr387/text/ih#compare=292546:ih https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr387/text/ih#com...

gwright 10y ago
But that would be a diff between two diffs. Not sure that helps in understanding the effective change.
- jimbo999 10y ago
  there is no magic for that... yet
  - monster2control 10y ago
    sounds like a cool coding challenge!!

Alex3917 10y ago

> Legislative workflow is in serious need of some better tooling. The CT legislature already has diffs on all of their legislation. So the tooling exists, congress.gov just hasn't implemented it.

elastic_church 10y ago

yeah, I've been thinking of this tool for about 7 years! First the entire US code would have to be on a git repo. And all the approved pull requests would also be there and you could roll it back to the very beginning. All the contributors would be the politicians. And all proposed bills would show what they modified. And the branch they came from would have all the other things. I like it because it would also be open to discussion and scrutiny. But transparency means a different thing to those people.

roryisok 10y ago
That is a fantastic idea. I'm not even American and I'd be fascinated by that. Every country should have this. During election time you could put in a candidate's name and see their history, what they voted for, any legislation they implemented etc. Truly open government. There probably is something like this for the EU Parliament but buried somewhere that nobody can find
- literallycancer 10y ago
  I'd be surprised if this wasn't already done in most countries. Checked my own out of curiosity, and they log all proposals, all votes on them, and provide the amendment text including how the new text would look with the changes applied.[1][2] Granted, it's not as easy to go back and see all the changes to a certain law, but the data is there. 1 - http://www.psp.cz/sqw/historie.sqw?o=7&t=964 http://www.psp.cz/sqw/historie.sqw?o=7&t=964 2 - http://www.psp.cz/sqw/phlasa.sqw?o=7&s=54&pg=17 http://www.psp.cz/sqw/phlasa.sqw?o=7&s=54&pg=17
  - elastic_church 10y ago
    Yeah it really is not. Should also be standard affair for state and municipal governments and all regulators.
Drup 10y ago
This exist for (part of) the french legal code: https://github.com/steeve/france.code-civil https://github.com/steeve/france.code-civil, https://github.com/Legilibre/Archeo-Lex https://github.com/Legilibre/Archeo-Lex This uses open data published by the governments at https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/ https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/