All posts in the topic community law-making, a system based on recombinant text (Short link)
Summary
- There are 9 posts — by 5 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Francesca McGrath at 2007 Sep 18 13:58 UTC
Hello to the group,
I am seeking criticism of this proposed system of legislation:
Recombinant text [a kind of distributed Wiki] could serve as a
medium for the proposal, drafting and enactment of laws...
Ultimately, it could serve to transfer full legislative power to the
community, where citizens would assume responsiblity for all stages
of civil law making...
1. Any citizen could draft a proposal (bill) for a new law;
or the amendment or abrogation of an existing law.
2. Other citizens (drafters) could copy the bill, modify it,
and thus create their own variants (drafts) of it.
3. Each citizen would have a single vote per bill,
which he might use to 'back' any draft of the bill.
A drafter could thus aquire a 'constituency' of backers.
... and so on
http://zelea.com/project/textbender/d/overview.xht#Law-Making
It looks to be technically feasible. (I am a software engineer.)
But what about politically? Can anyone see a flaw?
I worked on a project similar to this over the past few years. Starting in 2004, I had a site, platforms.smartcampaigns.com. The goal was to get people involved in the drafting and approval of the platform of the Democratic National Party in the United States leading up to the 2004 Presidential election. Draft copies of the platform were posted. People could comment on it, and find who the members of the platform committee were, as well as the delegates where. It was successfully used by activists to lobby for certain provisions in the Democratic Platform. You can see parts of this in Archive.org http://web.archive.org/web/20040905235018/http://platform.smartcampaigns.com/ As a result of this, I got into a discussion with people in North Carolina who wanted to present resolutions at the State Democratic Convention. The first draft was to use a test site that I have, http://test.smartcampaigns.com/ Anyone could submit a resolution. They could rate the resolution, or propose alternative texts. It was well received, although only a small number of people participated. I do not know how much if affected resolutions that were submitted to the State Convention. The reaction was that this should be expanded. The idea being that activists wishing to present a resolution to one committee might could find successful resolutions submitted to other committees. We created Drafting Democracy, http://www.draftingdemocracy.org Unfortunately, this never picked up, and it is sitting out there idle. As a technologist, I did all of this in Drupal, since I had set up a lot of Drupal sites and it was an easy platform to build what I wanted. I should note that the focus here was on citizens creating resolutions to go before committees, instead of people drafting legislation. In terms of the current legislative process in the United States, or at least in Connecticut, I could see this working, if you could find enough people interested in proposing legislation. In Connecticut, I seem to recall stories of people submitting legislation. I don't know the logistics of it, whether they need to get the State Representative to sign off, or what. However, I suspect that many State Reps would respond favorably, especially if there are a bunch of people behind the bill. The reason I suspect this, is also a reason I have doubts about it working. My wife ran for State Representative in Connecticut. During the campaign, people told us that 85% of the people in the United States do not know who their State Rep is. Based on our experience, even with people who are fairly politically involved, that appeared to be pretty accurate. There is a small amount of interest in passing resolutions before some committee. There is a much smaller amount of interest in passing legislation. In addition, the legalese necessary for a new law, the things that get examined in the legislative process, such as the economic impact on the State, who it relates to other laws, jurisdictions, etc can be considerable and might require major modification before the proposal becomes a law, or extremely savvy drafters of the legislation. So, technically, it looks pretty easy. Socially, my guess is that it will take a lot of work. If I were to start, I might not start with the technology, but with getting people involved in the existing legislative process. For each bill going through a legislative body, it would be good to have the votes online, as well as a place for legislatures to record why they voted the way they did, and for constituents to join a discussion about whether they agree or disagree with their legislators. While big bills in the U.S. Congress may get overwhelming messages of support or opposition, smaller bills do not, and many legislators at the State level rarely here from their constituents. All in all, I think it is a great idea, that should be built up to. That's my rant. I would love to hear other people's thoughts. Aldon Hynes http://www.orient-lodge.com
Hi Aldon and Michael, I appreciate Aldon's real life experience and assessment regarding possibilities for community law-making. Since it would require committed individuals that would draw from varied expertise, I suspect that an active on-line organization (like Move-on.org) might be interested in exploring the possibilites of this process. We could float the idea past some of them. What do you think? Carlos Cunha >>> Aldon Hynes <email obscured>> 08/12/07 10:33 AM >>> I worked on a project similar to this over the past few years. Starting in 2004, I had a site, platforms.smartcampaigns.com. The goal was to get people involved in the drafting and approval of the platform of the Democratic National Party in the United States leading up to the 2004 Presidential election. Draft copies of the platform were posted. People could comment on it, and find who the members of the platform committee were, as well as the delegates where. It was successfully used by activists to lobby for certain provisions in the Democratic Platform. You can see parts of this in Archive.org http://web.archive.org/web/20040905235018/http://platform.smartcampaigns.com/ As a result of this, I got into a discussion with people in North Carolina who wanted to present resolutions at the State Democratic Convention. The first draft was to use a test site that I have, http://test.smartcampaigns.com/ Anyone could submit a resolution. They could rate the resolution, or propose alternative texts. It was well received, although only a small number of people participated. I do not know how much if affected resolutions that were submitted to the State Convention. The reaction was that this should be expanded. The idea being that activists wishing to present a resolution to one committee might could find successful resolutions submitted to other committees. We created Drafting Democracy, http://www.draftingdemocracy.org Unfortunately, this never picked up, and it is sitting out there idle. As a technologist, I did all of this in Drupal, since I had set up a lot of Drupal sites and it was an easy platform to build what I wanted. I should note that the focus here was on citizens creating resolutions to go before committees, instead of people drafting legislation. In terms of the current legislative process in the United States, or at least in Connecticut, I could see this working, if you could find enough people interested in proposing legislation. In Connecticut, I seem to recall stories of people submitting legislation. I don't know the logistics of it, whether they need to get the State Representative to sign off, or what. However, I suspect that many State Reps would respond favorably, especially if there are a bunch of people behind the bill. The reason I suspect this, is also a reason I have doubts about it working. My wife ran for State Representative in Connecticut. During the campaign, people told us that 85% of the people in the United States do not know who their State Rep is. Based on our experience, even with people who are fairly politically involved, that appeared to be pretty accurate. There is a small amount of interest in passing resolutions before some committee. There is a much smaller amount of interest in passing legislation. In addition, the legalese necessary for a new law, the things that get examined in the legislative process, such as the economic impact on the State, who it relates to other laws, jurisdictions, etc can be considerable and might require major modification before the proposal becomes a law, or extremely savvy drafters of the legislation. So, technically, it looks pretty easy. Socially, my guess is that it will take a lot of work. If I were to start, I might not start with the technology, but with getting people involved in the existing legislative process. For each bill going through a legislative body, it would be good to have the votes online, as well as a place for legislatures to record why they voted the way they did, and for constituents to join a discussion about whether they agree or disagree with their legislators. While big bills in the U.S. Congress may get overwhelming messages of support or opposition, smaller bills do not, and many legislators at the State level rarely here from their constituents. All in all, I think it is a great idea, that should be built up to. That's my rant. I would love to hear other people's thoughts. Aldon Hynes http://www.orient-lodge.com
On Sun, Aug 12, 2007 at 10:33:16AM -0400, Aldon Hynes wrote: > I worked on a project similar to this over the past few years. > Starting in 2004, I had a site, platforms.smartcampaigns.com. The > goal was to get people involved in the drafting and approval of the > platform of the Democratic National Party in the United States leading > up to the 2004 Presidential election. > > Draft copies of the platform were posted. People could comment on it, > and find who the members of the platform committee were, as well as > the delegates where. It was successfully used by activists to lobby > for certain provisions in the Democratic Platform. > > You can see parts of this in Archive.org > http://web.archive.org/web/20040905235018/http://platform.smartcampaigns.com/ > > As a result of this, I got into a discussion with people in North > Carolina who wanted to present resolutions at the State Democratic > Convention. The first draft was to use a test site that I have, > http://test.smartcampaigns.com/ Anyone could submit a resolution. > They could rate the resolution, or propose alternative texts. It was > well received, although only a small number of people participated. I > do not know how much if affected resolutions that were submitted to > the State Convention. In either of the systems (old above, or new below) could people edit the resolutions after posting? If so, could they edit only their own, or anybody's (like a Wiki)? (I am unfamiliar with Drupal.) Would an "alternative text" be a separate proposal, with a separate rating? Or would it somehow be connected with the original proposal?
On Sun, Aug 12, 2007 at 11:00:06AM -0400, Carlos Cunha wrote:
> Hi Aldon and Michael,
>
> I appreciate Aldon's real life experience and assessment regarding
> possibilities for community law-making. Since it would require
> committed individuals that would draw from varied expertise, I suspect
> that an active on-line organization (like Move-on.org) might be
> interested in exploring the possibilites of this process. We could
> float the idea past some of them. What do you think?
>
> Carlos Cunha
Hi Carlos,
You are welcome to forward my posts to them. I'd be interested in
their views, especially their critique of the proposal.
OK, I'll try MoveOn first and see what they have to say.
Carlos
>>> Michael Allan <email obscured>> 08/13/07 7:55 AM >>>
On Sun, Aug 12, 2007 at 11:00:06AM -0400, Carlos Cunha wrote:
> Hi Aldon and Michael,
>
> I appreciate Aldon's real life experience and assessment regarding
> possibilities for community law-making. Since it would require
> committed individuals that would draw from varied expertise, I suspect
> that an active on-line organization (like Move-on.org) might be
> interested in exploring the possibilites of this process. We could
> float the idea past some of them. What do you think?
>
> Carlos Cunha
Hi Carlos,
You are welcome to forward my posts to them. I'd be interested in
their views, especially their critique of the proposal.
From my experience, MoveOn tends to focus much more on issues at the Federal Level than at the State Level and be fairly top down oriented. If anything, I would be tempted to start with organizations that are more oriented towards state government, such as Democracy for America (DFA) http://www.democracyforamerica.com or the Progressive Legislative Action Network http://www.progressivestates.org/ I was at the National Conference of State Legislature (NCSL) last week, and have written a challenge to members of DFA about responding to their State Reps. Based on this discussion, I hope to take some of my experiences from NCSL and expand upon them, in part based on this discussion. So, I have a question for everyone on this list: Do you know your State Rep? (If you live outside of the United States, please help me out and give me a little details about how state government works in your country.) - I'm having coffee with mine on Friday. Does your state have a site where you can track legislation as it moves through the assembly? Can you tell me the state, the URL, if you use the site, how easy you think it is to use, what means there are of subscribing? Also of importance, is how easy is it to access the state budget. - I live in Connecticut. Our State Legislature is called the General Assembly. Their website is http://www.cga.ct.gov/ You can search bills, read their text and amendments, track their progress, see the votes, and subscribe to them via email. There is NOT an RSS feed of the bills or the bills progress. It is a decent tool for doing research, but not great for interactive involvement in the legislative process. I do not know if there is any easy way of tracking the budget. Any feed back that people on this list have would be greatly appreciated.
Aldon Hynes Sent: 13 August 2007 13:52 > Do you know your State Rep? Yes. All eight of them!! (The joys of MMP!!!) > (If you live outside of the > United States, please help me out and give me a little > details about how state government works in your country.) Scotland has a devolved Parliament (see http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/home.htm) and a devolved Government, officially entitled the Scottish Executive (see http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Home). > Does your state have a site where you can track legislation > as it moves through the assembly? Can you tell me the state, > the URL, This is Section J of the Business Bulletin that is published daily when the Parliament is in session (in recess at present). For examples, see: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/businessBulletin/index.htm http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/businessBulletin/bb-07/bb-08-13.htm http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/businessBulletin/bb-07/bb-08-13j.htm > if you use the site, how easy you think it is to > use, what means there are of subscribing? It's OK. No subscription necessary. The UK Parliament (Westminster) has an alerting system for new legislation and amendments to which you can subscribe. > Also of > importance, is how easy is it to access the state budget. I haven't given much attention to the budget, but I have been involved with legislation and debate on electoral matters (as a Google will reveal).
Hi Following on, belatedly, from James's response you can track the legislation in the Scottish Parliament using the 'Progress of Bill' pages available on all Bill pages. The Bill pages are created as soon as a Bill has been introduced. For example, Abolition of Bridge Tolls (Scotland) Bill (http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/bills/01-AbolitionBridgeTolls/index.htm) has a Progress of Bill page (http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/bills/01-AbolitionBridgeTolls/Progress.htm), which includes dates of future meetings. You can also track proposals for Members' Bill (http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/bills/membersBills.htm) Hope this is still useful