Sneaky little bastages
by Tom Sullivan
Still image from Johnny Dangerously (1984)
“You elected them to write new laws. They’re letting corporations do it instead,” USA Today warns. Thousands upon thousands of bills introduced each year bear traces of “model” bills written by industry groups and promoted by special-interest lobbyists. USA Today, The Arizona Republic, and the Center for Public Integrity spent two years examining the issue and found at least 10,000 bills introduced across the country over the last eight years “almost entirely copied” from model legislation. More than 2,100 became law:
The investigation examined nearly 1 million bills in all 50 states and Congress using a computer algorithm developed to detect similarities in language. That search – powered by the equivalent of 150 computers that ran nonstop for months – compared known model legislation with bills introduced by lawmakers.
The phenomenon of copycat legislation is far larger. In a separate analysis, the Center for Public Integrity identified tens of thousands of bills with identical phrases, then traced the origins of that language in dozens of those bills across the country.
Model bills passed into law have made it harder for injured consumers to sue corporations. They’ve called for taxes on sugar-laden drinks. They’ve limited access to abortion and restricted the rights of protesters.
With deceptive names that hide their true purpose and traveling “experts” paid to promote them to legislatures, copycat bills have proliferated. They sometimes arrive in state capitols to override the will of voters who passed local legislation opposed by industry or well-funded interest groups. The bulk of such bills, the study found, reflect the interests of industry and conservative groups.
“One that passed in Wisconsin limited pain-and-suffering compensation for injured nursing-home residents, restricting payouts to lost wages, which the elderly residents don’t have,” the report adds.
Naturally, the American Legislative Exchange Council gets name-checked more than once:
“This work proves what many people have suspected, which is just how much of the democratic process has been outsourced to special interests,” said Lisa Graves, co-director of Documented, which probes corporate manipulation of public policy. “It is both astonishing and disappointing to see how widespread … it is. Good lord, it’s an amazing thing to see.”
It’s a stunning read, though not earth-shattering news. Given recent history, next thing you know hostile countries will be phoning it in. And our own lawmakers will help them.