41–50 of 129 posts
I find the fact that nobody seems to know how those names got into the bill particularly frustrating. Lawmakers really need to learn to use version tracking properly. It's shouldn't be possible for a single line of text to make it into a bill without a digital trail leading back to whoever added it.
I find the fact that nobody seems to know how those names got into the bill particularly frustrating. Lawmakers really need to learn to use version tracking properly. It's shouldn't be possible for a single line of text to make it into a bill without a digital trail leading back to whoever added it.
I don’t want to pick on you specifically, because this is just one example of a very common pathology, but this is such an “HN-brained” comment. “They didn’t use version control” is ten million miles from the real problem here, and adopting version control would improve literally nothing about this situation.
They use word processors to write the things, they could at least learn to turn on "track changes".
I genuinely do believe that a law that says "all laws must be able to show author tracking on a per-line basis" would improve democracy. Convince me otherwise!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a former job I worked on a tech co's policy response to a major piece of California AI legislation a couple of years ago and was stunned to learn that nonprofits (at least, I'd be shocked if this didn't also include companies) basically sponsor bills and just find lawmakers to introduce and champion them.
Many Judicial opinions are done in the same manner. An attorney from the winning side prepares a draft opinion and a judge reviews/edits it and away it goes. The edits in the couple I've personally seen are incredibly light - more or less a rubber stamp with the judge's name on it. I imagine this holds true (via chatting with insider friends) for many such "industries" including lawmaking, scientific/academic papers,…
The closest I can think of is when jury instructions are issued. But in that, the two sides ultimately work with the court to hammer out the details of how those instructions should look. And often, they are based on a more or less standard template with minor revisions.
Proposed constitutional amendment: Within 30 days after a bill is made law, legislators that voted must pass an automatically generated comprehension test of the legislation at a 6th grade level. On failure they lose voting privileges for 90 days. On three strikes they leave office and a new election for that seat is called.
Why not make it a condition of the vote in the first place? Don't understand it? No vote for you. If your constituency wanted a say, they can let you know what they think about that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a former job I worked on a tech co's policy response to a major piece of California AI legislation a couple of years ago and was stunned to learn that nonprofits (at least, I'd be shocked if this didn't also include companies) basically sponsor bills and just find lawmakers to introduce and champion them.
Many Judicial opinions are done in the same manner. An attorney from the winning side prepares a draft opinion and a judge reviews/edits it and away it goes. The edits in the couple I've personally seen are incredibly light - more or less a rubber stamp with the judge's name on it. I imagine this holds true (via chatting with insider friends) for many such "industries" including lawmaking, scientific/academic papers,…
I find the fact that nobody seems to know how those names got into the bill particularly frustrating. Lawmakers really need to learn to use version tracking properly. It's shouldn't be possible for a single line of text to make it into a bill without a digital trail leading back to whoever added it.
Not how reconciliation-based negotiations work.
Behind every material lawmaker you’d have redlines circulating among their staff. Each industry group would have them circulating among its members. Each citizen group, too. These will be haphazardly combined among the groups, sometimes transparently, sometimes strategically. It’s still traceable. But not necessarily in one go, and probably only through a lawmaker who doesn’t want to look duped.
There was a good article on the immortality of Word recently that addressed this.
Proposed constitutional amendment: Within 30 days after a bill is made law, legislators that voted must pass an automatically generated comprehension test of the legislation at a 6th grade level. On failure they lose voting privileges for 90 days. On three strikes they leave office and a new election for that seat is called.
Congratulations, you’ve transferred legislative power to the test administrator and granted them a de facto veto to boot.
Better: laws are subject to up-down popular veto. (Counterpoint: you’ll wind up with omnibuses.)
So... does it mean that nobody reads the law? Is it good or bad? What is the takeaway?
It means every lawmaker isn’t a geologist. That’s fine. It also means there clearly wasn’t enough public input from geologists that someone would have noticed a name they’d never seen in a group they were familiar with.
Nearly as bad, this website encrypts it's text using a simple cipher intentionally breaking it for those that don't successfully run all of their untrusted third party code. >kAm%96 :?4=FD:@? @7 7:4E:@?2= DF3DE2?46D :D 36:?8 42==65 2? 6>32CC2DD>6?E 3J @?6 DE2E6 @77:4:2=[ 2 A@DD:3=6 AC24E:42= ;@ JDE:7J:?8 3J E96 =2H>2 @?:E@C]4@>^a_ad^`a^`h^?@CE9\52 :?6C2=D\32D65\@?\4@2=\=2HJ6CD\?2>6D^Q E2C86ElQ03=2? That's the first t…