What kinds of legislation should the site cover?

[fierce-bad-squirrel]

We seem to have bills covered. Do we also want treaties, regulations, executive orders, signing statements, etc.? Now, later or at any point?

[OLawD]

i think so even if those are not as dynamically used as the bill
sections. bills implicate all of those things so for tagging,
reference, mapping, and just general educational purposes i would again
advise against closing doors on any part of the legal system.

fierce-bad-squirrel
mailto:reply@reply.github.com
Monday, April 30, 2012 1:29 PM
We seem to have bills covered. Do we also want treaties, regulations,
executive orders, signing statements, etc.? Now, later or at any point?

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
#51

[fierce-bad-squirrel]

I guess the question then becomes which kinds of legislation should be available for crowd sourcing and which should merely be referenced?

[jonlaing]

I would be in favor of this, but I don't really have any legal expertise to comment on the prudence of opening up to other types of legislation.

Tangentially, it would be incredibly helpful if we had more people involved with some sort of legal experience. I know this project has only been off the ground for a day or two, but we should make an effort to reach out to those interested in an open source project. Hopefully we won't be met with the same sort of scorn that resulted from the original reaching out from r/fia to r/law. Since we are all professionals doing pro bono work, I would hope the legal community wouldn't be as offended if we asked their opinions.

[fierce-bad-squirrel]

I agree we need people with legal expertise to help. Asking for feedback on general structure, rather than particular legislation is likely to be met more openly.

Treaties seems particularly problematic from a linguistic standpoint... I don't see anyway that executive orders and signing statements being crowd-sourced would be likely to have an impact. Regulations are iffy, in my mind. Agencies like the FDA, USDA, SEC, FEC, etc. might be amenable to such suggestions, but I think they tend to be a bit more removed from public feedback than legislative bodies.

[hamstar]

I reckon that we limit the scope for editing/creating legislation to bills for now. We are already going to have a lot on our plate as it is, and bills seem to be the most effective way for the public to make changes to national legislation.

Also it seems it might be hard to get help from lawyers for bills let alone something as (what sounds like) advanced as treaty legislation.

[fierce-bad-squirrel]

Yes. I think we should develop on a more limited scope with the idea that functionality may later be expanded.

[hamstar]

We may still need to import all types of legislation however.

"You have to be prepared to state, with certainty, every piece of existing law that you want to change. And that isn't just black-letter statutes, it's court rulings, administrative regulations, orders from on high, government position papers, everything. Everything. I hope by now you are beginning to understand the magnitude of research required for a major piece of legislation: for every single clause in the legalese draft of your legislation, you need to know with absolute certainty what other existing laws that clause affects" - craybatesedu

[fierce-bad-squirrel]

We'll probably should also pull in state legislation. Maybe even county and municipal regulations, though that might be going a little deep to start.

[OLawD]

I think we should pull state and federal and somehow allow others to go
further if they want on their own initiative. Giving them the tools is the
most important part.
On May 2, 2012 2:26 PM, "fierce-bad-squirrel" <
reply@reply.github.com>
wrote:

We'll probably should also pull in state legislation. Maybe even county
and municipal regulations, though that might be going a little deep to
start.

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
#51 (comment)

[fierce-bad-squirrel]

True enough. I think the state and federal levels are most likely to have central repositories, too. A lot of small towns require a trip to the courthouse to access legislation.