4 ms·

So much legislation consists of "add the following text to USC 1.23: 'blah blah blah'" that I'm surprised there isn't something like this for pending bills.

by kej 7y ago

badrequest 7y ago
I had this realization like four years ago, and bought `gitvernment.org` precisely to do this...one day.
- drharby 7y ago
  I should review my purchased domains too
- clintonb 7y ago
  I also had a similar idea for a project that tracked changes so citizens could see exactly which representative changed a bill. The OpenGovFoundation built Madison[0] to enable the public to comment on bills, but that project has been shuttered. I still think there is some merit to the idea. The challenge, however, is to convince legislative bodies to use such a system. [0] https://mymadison.io https://mymadison.io
matthewmcg 7y ago
Agreed, though I think to sharpen the analogy, the United States Code (U.S.C.) would be the "code" in the repository and pending legislation would be pull requests.
tpmoney 7y ago
There is in a way. One of the selling points of LexisNexis’ law products are these sorts of “diff” views of the law
- sjy 7y ago
  In my experience these services tend to have terrible UX, they’re not reliable or comprehensive, and they require human maintenance so there are usually huge subscription fees that scale with the number of statutes you have access to. Legislatures really should publish law in a machine readable format so that historical navigation and compilation can be fully automated including by members of the public. The human-readable statues can still be compiled artists; it’s a much easier and lower risk kind of modernisation than, say, converting paper forms into web apps.
  - sjy 7y ago
    ugh, “statutes can still be compiled artifacts”
jaymmartin 7y ago
Washington, DC officially keeps its changes in Github: https://github.com/DCCouncil/dc-law-xml https://github.com/DCCouncil/dc-law-xml https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/how-i-changed-the-law-with-a-github-pull-request/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/how-i-changed-th...
- tr33house 7y ago
  It would be awesome if congress had something similar
showerst 7y ago
There's actually a group working on this exact thing at the federal level -- https://congressionaldata.org/bulk-data-task-force-reports-major-strides-at-october-2019-meeting/ https://congressionaldata.org/bulk-data-task-force-reports-m... It's a pretty complex task, especially at the state level where there often aren't consistent plaintext publishings, or in some cases even digital versions of the effected code/regulations.
- xg15 7y ago
  I wonder, how are all the "change this text in this other paragraph" laws carried out then? Wouldn't at least the courts need a "current" version of all laws with all modifications applied?
  - showerst 7y ago
    (IANAL but I do work with digital legal data) — depends on the jurisdiction. Generally the bills that change legal codes are timed to take effect all in the same near-future date, and so a new “printing” is issued. How often this happens varies, but can be as little as once a year. In the cases where a law is immediately effected, judges and lawyers are smart and read the news, and services like lexis have alerting. The main legal providers will also “patch” things in themselves in advance of printings, and do change sets and redlines by hand. Oftentimes bills instruct regulatory agencies to do things, which is a process that includes lots of published notice.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > It's a pretty complex task, especially at the state level where there often aren't consistent plaintext publishings, or in some cases even digital versions of the effected code/regulations. There are pretty much always digital versions, though they may not be freely available to the public or licenses in a way which would permit using them as a basis. (Lexis/Nexis has them, with change history, links to relevant case law, etc., etc., etc.)
dgreisen 7y ago
Our nonprofit, Open Law Library, works with governments to do exactly this. For example, the DC Council uses our software to codify and publish their laws in xml and html on github: https://github.com/dccouncil/dc-law-xml https://github.com/dccouncil/dc-law-xml. If you're interested in getting your government's laws published using git in human- and computer-readable formats, feel free to reach out to me at dgreisen [at] openlawlib [dot] org.
andrewaylett 7y ago
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ tracks UK legislation -- you can see "as enacted" and "as amended". They even go through and note where new legislation has an impact on existing legislation without changing the text! Only for already passed legislation, rather than pending, though.

So much legislation consists of "add the following text to USC 1.23: 'blah blah blah'" that I'm surprised there isn't something like this for pending bills.

by kej 7y ago

So much legislation consists of "add the following text to USC 1.23: 'blah blah blah'" that I'm surprised there isn't something like this for pending bills.

badrequest 7y ago

I had this realization like four years ago, and bought `gitvernment.org` precisely to do this...one day.

drharby 7y ago
I should review my purchased domains too
clintonb 7y ago
I also had a similar idea for a project that tracked changes so citizens could see exactly which representative changed a bill. The OpenGovFoundation built Madison[0] to enable the public to comment on bills, but that project has been shuttered. I still think there is some merit to the idea. The challenge, however, is to convince legislative bodies to use such a system. [0] https://mymadison.io https://mymadison.io

matthewmcg 7y ago

Agreed, though I think to sharpen the analogy, the United States Code (U.S.C.) would be the "code" in the repository and pending legislation would be pull requests.

tpmoney 7y ago

There is in a way. One of the selling points of LexisNexis’ law products are these sorts of “diff” views of the law

sjy 7y ago
In my experience these services tend to have terrible UX, they’re not reliable or comprehensive, and they require human maintenance so there are usually huge subscription fees that scale with the number of statutes you have access to. Legislatures really should publish law in a machine readable format so that historical navigation and compilation can be fully automated including by members of the public. The human-readable statues can still be compiled artists; it’s a much easier and lower risk kind of modernisation than, say, converting paper forms into web apps.
- sjy 7y ago
  ugh, “statutes can still be compiled artifacts”

jaymmartin 7y ago

Washington, DC officially keeps its changes in Github: https://github.com/DCCouncil/dc-law-xml https://github.com/DCCouncil/dc-law-xml https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/how-i-changed-the-law-with-a-github-pull-request/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/how-i-changed-th...

tr33house 7y ago
It would be awesome if congress had something similar

showerst 7y ago

There's actually a group working on this exact thing at the federal level -- https://congressionaldata.org/bulk-data-task-force-reports-major-strides-at-october-2019-meeting/ https://congressionaldata.org/bulk-data-task-force-reports-m... It's a pretty complex task, especially at the state level where there often aren't consistent plaintext publishings, or in some cases even digital versions of the effected code/regulations.

xg15 7y ago
I wonder, how are all the "change this text in this other paragraph" laws carried out then? Wouldn't at least the courts need a "current" version of all laws with all modifications applied?
- showerst 7y ago
  (IANAL but I do work with digital legal data) — depends on the jurisdiction. Generally the bills that change legal codes are timed to take effect all in the same near-future date, and so a new “printing” is issued. How often this happens varies, but can be as little as once a year. In the cases where a law is immediately effected, judges and lawyers are smart and read the news, and services like lexis have alerting. The main legal providers will also “patch” things in themselves in advance of printings, and do change sets and redlines by hand. Oftentimes bills instruct regulatory agencies to do things, which is a process that includes lots of published notice.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> It's a pretty complex task, especially at the state level where there often aren't consistent plaintext publishings, or in some cases even digital versions of the effected code/regulations. There are pretty much always digital versions, though they may not be freely available to the public or licenses in a way which would permit using them as a basis. (Lexis/Nexis has them, with change history, links to relevant case law, etc., etc., etc.)

dgreisen 7y ago

Our nonprofit, Open Law Library, works with governments to do exactly this. For example, the DC Council uses our software to codify and publish their laws in xml and html on github: https://github.com/dccouncil/dc-law-xml https://github.com/dccouncil/dc-law-xml. If you're interested in getting your government's laws published using git in human- and computer-readable formats, feel free to reach out to me at dgreisen [at] openlawlib [dot] org.

andrewaylett 7y ago

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ tracks UK legislation -- you can see "as enacted" and "as amended". They even go through and note where new legislation has an impact on existing legislation without changing the text! Only for already passed legislation, rather than pending, though.