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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.

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[–] xylogx 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The EFF is one such group:

https://www.eff.org/aboutface/toolkit

[–] 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.

[–] DocMcStuffin 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yikes! I wouldn't sully EFF's name by equating them to ALEC. I'm not aware of EFF writing any model legislation. More of what they do is analysis of laws and raising awareness of technology and privacy issues.

[–] xylogx 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you look at the link it contains two pieces of model legislation.

[–] DocMcStuffin 2 points 1 year ago

I just skimmed. I see it now. Thank you.

[–] LesserAbe 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As our friend pointed out the link includes some model legislation, however the whole idea of my post is to equate organizations to ALEC, only in the sense that they create model legislation, but with a non-fucked up ideology

[–] DocMcStuffin 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I see. But that's kinda the thing though. It's not just the model legislation that makes ALEC effective. It's when they couple that with the other activities that are unethical to bordering on illegal. For example, when ALEC got busted voting together with politicians on model bills behind closed doors. While not illegal, backroom dealing like that is super unethical.

But to bring things back to your original idea. I suppose we're not just looking at model legislation, but also getting it in-front of politicians. While not engaging in the same nefarious activities ALEC has done.

[–] LesserAbe 2 points 1 year ago

You're right, definitely don't want to emulate the other negative aspects. You're also right that we need organization to get in front of politicians.

In my limited experience, it's much more effective to have a specific ask for politicians. "Vote yes/no on this bill" "cosponsor this bill." Which is why it's worth thinking about more efficient ways to generate legislation, and legislation which is effective. You can get some real half-assed, pandering to other constituencies type language if you ask state politicians who only half support your cause to write a bill.