Ask Lemmy

27157 readers

1958 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Is there a progressive organization that writes model legislation? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 1 year ago by LesserAbe to c/asklemmy

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

ALEC is a conservative group that writes model legislation in the U.S., and hundreds of their bills have been enacted in different states. Many of them are harmful. But you have to admire the model in some ways because it's working. It saves legislators research, it propagates the "best" policies and implementations from their view rather than relying on individuals to figure it out themselves, and (presumably) avoids some legal challenges by involving experts at the beginning.

Is there a progressive version? I've come across one example, SIX, which doesn't quite seem to fit the description because they only keep a library of legislation from various states, they don't write bills from scratch.

I got to thinking about this because while many of us support various ideas, it's not always clear how to put them into action. Something like universal healthcare: are there ways states (or even municipalities or counties) could start to put this into action? I'm not an expert, and frankly most legislators aren't either. But if we could bring together experts and create model legislation, that would be something we could rally around and demand from our elected officials. This applies to many issues like sustainability, public housing, free higher education, addressing food insecurity, universal basic income, better electoral systems.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] IamtheMorgz 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The EFF is really just about one topic though (privacy on the Internet, for those of you unfamiliar with their work). I'm sure some other orgs have their own topics they have written model legislation for. ALEC writes for everything on the GOP agenda, and I think that's what OP was getting at - a universal writer. But I don't think there is one. Perhaps because the Left is very broad in it approaches to stuff, comparatively? So it's harder to nail down the language everyone would agree on? Or maybe it's ideological from the Dem party, that they don't want that kind of centralized writer for issues that have nuance. No clue, this is a really interesting question from OP.

[–] grue 2 points 1 year ago

The EFF is really just about one topic though (privacy on the Internet, for those of you unfamiliar with their work).

Not quite. They're advocates for that and several other technology-related issues, such as opposing DRM and expansion of copyright law, supporting right to repair, opposing censorship, etc.