
You elected them to write new laws. They’re letting corporations do it instead - aaronbrethorst
https://publicintegrity.org/state-politics/copy-paste-legislate/you-elected-them-to-write-new-laws-theyre-letting-corporations-do-it-instead/
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tptacek
I'm never clear on why I'm supposed to be upset about model legislation. It
seems like that's how the process _should_ work: interest groups should, in
addition to making valence appeals for their particular interests, also take
the time to draft specific proposals. 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.

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/](https://stateinnovation.org/)).

~~~
nothrabannosir
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)

~~~
tptacek
Sure, that's the general pattern of diffuse vs concentrated interests, and
it's a real problem, but it's orthogonal to model legislation.

~~~
nothrabannosir
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?

~~~
tptacek
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.

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pratheekrebala
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...](https://publicintegrity.org/state-politics/copy-paste-
legislate/the-multistate-push-to-let-dealers-get-away-with-selling-you-a-
defective-car/)

~~~
tptacek
This is awesome work and should be the top comment on the thread.

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Jerry2
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...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/googles-
ceo-the-laws-are-written-by-lobbyists/63908/)

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msluyter
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancur_Olson)

~~~
jessaustin
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?

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Dowwie
Does everyone remember the study from 2014 about American oligarchy?
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10769041/The-
US-is-an-oligarchy-study-concludes.html)

Cycling the same story every 5 years isn't going to change things..

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milesvp
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.

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foobarbazetc
Ah... the royal “they”. Both sides, etc.

