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How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

arstechnica.com

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Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#21

Post by flas9sd »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #3

From the Why It Matters section: The Council is able to publish the law better and faster than ever before. With the District’s previous codification contractor, updates to the DC Code were published three times a year, and there could be a five-to-seven month delay in seeing the latest laws. But the Open Law Library has shortened the publication process to about a week after a law is enacted. It also means we’re all…

I saw that as the core message justifying the headline. He as a civic hacker has interest in modern methods arriving in administrative circles and bringing a spotlight to it - inspiring others to do as well.

I was surprised I knew the author - he maintains mail-in-a-box, a popular mail selfhosting package.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#22

Post by lozenge »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #19
craftyguy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No law was changed. The title is straight up clickbait.

Actually, it was changed. A reference from "Subchapter I" was changed to "Subchapter II", under the authority of the single lawyer that reviewed it.

Here's the original pull request: https://github.com/DCCouncil/dc-law-xml/pull/134/files

The text already mentioned "The Freedom of Information Act of 1976" unambiguously, but the metadata was incorrect.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#23

Post by fzeroracer »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #3

From the Why It Matters section: The Council is able to publish the law better and faster than ever before. With the District’s previous codification contractor, updates to the DC Code were published three times a year, and there could be a five-to-seven month delay in seeing the latest laws. But the Open Law Library has shortened the publication process to about a week after a law is enacted. It also means we’re all…

This is pretty common in government agencies from what I've seen. Many contractors take forever to do even the most basic of changes because of how contracting works in order to milk as much money as possible.

But agencies that move towards open source initiatives, non-profits etc end up being a lot more responsive and overall end up a lot better off. Unfortunately there's a lot of entrenched commercial entities (ex Oracle) that want things to remain the same so it's going to be hard to rout them. Initiatives like this give me a bit of hope though.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#24

Post by billsmithaustin »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #20
alistairSH wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a review performed via pull request. In this case,a small typo was corrected - no further action required.

Yes, in this case, no harm done. But the process of checks and balances that are the backbone of our system of government were circumvented. Those checks and balances exist to create a hope of detecting abuse when it happens.

Is is possible that a similarly light-weight process would have been used if the correction had been submitted in a typewritten letter or over email?

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#25

Post by gammateam »

I've been wanting this for a long time, I wanted to take it further though:

I want draft laws, I want to see all representatives as contributors and be able to see their contributions and changes to draft laws.

the House should have a master branch that submits pull requests to another repository, the other chamber having one too

The Governor/President gets to approve PR's from that jurisdiction

It would become SUPER easy to track origins and changes of laws, let alone browse them, and comment on them.

I'd like to see this done retroactively all the way back to English law

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#26

Post by fao_ »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #20
alistairSH wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a review performed via pull request. In this case,a small typo was corrected - no further action required.

Yes, in this case, no harm done. But the process of checks and balances that are the backbone of our system of government were circumvented. Those checks and balances exist to create a hope of detecting abuse when it happens.

Indeed. Even something as small as an added comma might seem a good idea but could drastically change the reading of the law in question.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#28

Post by amelius »

adiian wrote: post #10

On one side it makes sense to have a public repository like git used for this, but having a private company being responsible for this it's bit strange. The fact that a pull request was accepted was now that strange because it could have been done by the council representative. For this kind of use case it would make more sense to me some sort of block chain, not controlled by a single company. "This isn’t a copy of…

Github is just the storage medium.

It's a bit like saying that the paper on which the law is printed may not be produced by a private company, which of course, doesn't make sense.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#29

Post by bytematic »

gammateam wrote: post #25

I've been wanting this for a long time, I wanted to take it further though: I want draft laws, I want to see all representatives as contributors and be able to see their contributions and changes to draft laws. the House should have a master branch that submits pull requests to another repository, the other chamber having one too The Governor/President gets to approve PR's from that jurisdiction It would become SUPER…

I would love to see a constitution drafted for a fictional country.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#30

Post by will_brown »

gammateam wrote: post #25

I've been wanting this for a long time, I wanted to take it further though: I want draft laws, I want to see all representatives as contributors and be able to see their contributions and changes to draft laws. the House should have a master branch that submits pull requests to another repository, the other chamber having one too The Governor/President gets to approve PR's from that jurisdiction It would become SUPER…

Here is an example of a platform like what you describe if not exactly, for the Delaware legislature.

I am linking to a particular law I followed from inception to passage, an amendment to the Delaware limited liability company Act allowing company records to be kept on Blockchain.

https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail/26554

You get the name of the Sponsor and co sponsors, additional sponsors, sign status, next steps, committee reports, action history, etc...

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