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Legislative Legos

I just got back from a vacation in Denmark – the land where Legos come from. I thought it might be appropriate to spend some time talking about Flavio Zeni at UNDESA calls Legislative Legos – building blocks that can be used to build legislative systems.

Why is this such an important concept? Well, it’s all about managing risk and building a system that can adapt to change in timely manner. Legislative systems can take years and cost many millions of dollars to develop. As the sophistication grows and automation takes root throughout the organization, these systems become extensive mission critical parts of the organization’s fabric. So failure is not an option.

At the same time as legislative systems become so […]

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Why Not Build a Legislative Editor out of Google Docs?

Ever since I started working on my legislative editor (http://legalhacks.org/editor), I’ve been asked over and over if I was using Google Docs, and if not, why not.

So to answer the first part of the question, the answer is a simple no. I don’t use Google Docs or anything like it.

There are a number of good reasons why I take a different path. The first reason is that Google simply doesn’t open Google Docs to that type of customization. Even if the customization capability was there, there are still plenty of reasons why choosing to build a legislative editor around Google Docs would not necessarily make sense. We can start with the privacy and security concerns with storing legislation […]

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Why is Building a Legislative Editor so difficult?

Way back in 2002, when I first started building an editor for legislation, the problem looked so simple. We figured it was a quick six month project and we would then have a product we could resell to other jurisdictions. I remember when we first made our modest proposal, having it pushed back at us and being told we needed to go and rethink it. California had already learned, the hard way, that the deceptively simple problem of building a legislative editor was actually much more difficult and complex. What I have come to appreciate, over time, is that California’s approach actually makes the problem easier. It’s even harder elsewhere where the drafting rules are less structured and well thought […]

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A Pluggable XML Editor

Ever since I announced my HTML5-based XML editor, I’ve been getting all sorts of requests for a variety of implementations. While the focus has been, and continues to be, providing an Akoma Ntoso based legislative editor, I’ve realized that the interest in a web-based XML editor extends well beyond Akoma Ntoso and even legislative editors.

So… with that in mind I’ve started making some serious architectural changes to the base editor. From the get-go, my intent had been for the editor to be “pluggable” although I hadn’t totally thought it through. By “pluggable” I mean capable of allowing different information models to be used. I’m actually taking the model a bit further to allow modules to be built that can provide […]

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XBRL in Legislation

Over the past few weeks, my posts about the HTML5 editor I have been working on have received a lot of attention. One aspect that I have noticed throughout has been people equating legislative markup to XBRL. In fact, I have taken to explaining Akoma Ntoso as being like XBRL for legislation. That helps people better understand what we are up to.

Or does it? It’s a little misleading to describe a legislative information model as being like XBRL for legislation. The reason is that many of the people interested in the transparency aspects of legislative XML are interested in it precisely because they’re interested in tracking budget appropriations. The assumption being made is that the XML will somehow […]

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Unhackathon Wrapup

Well, we had our “unhackathon” and it was, overall, a great success. We learned a lot, introduced a lot of people to the notion of XML markup and Akoma Ntoso, and made a number of important contacts all around. I hope that all the participants got something out of the experience. In San Francisco we were competing with a lovely Saturday afternoon and a street fair outside – which people chose to give up in order to attend our event.

At UC Hastings we had a special visit from State Senator Leland Yee of the 8th District which was most gratifying. He has been a strong proponent for government transparency and his surprise visit was awesome.

This was the first outing […]

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An Interesting Idea for how to Rethink How we are Governed

This past weekend I came across this interesting block by Abe Voelker. GitLaw: GitHub for Laws and Legal Documents – a Tourniquet for American Liberty. The reaction he got was amazing and totally overwhelmed him.

It’s an interesting read – written by someone naive enough to actually have hope that we could fix our government by applying modern technology. Of course, those of us in the know realize how totally absurd his ideas are. The legislative process is meant to be out of reach the public citizen. It’s meant to keep the common people from meddling in how laws are made. Those people would use normal everyday language that everybody could understand. Too many eyes might spot all the […]

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An HTML5-Based XML Editor for Legislation!

UPDATE: (May 17, 2012) For all the people that asked for more editing capabilities, I have updated the editor to provide rudimentary cut/copy/paste capabilities via the normal shortcut keys. More to follow as I get the cycles to refine the capabilities.

I’ve just released my mini-tutorial for the HTML5-based XML editor I am developing for drafting legislation (actually it’s best for tagging existing legislation at this point).

Please keep in mind that this editor is still very much in development – so its not fully functional and bug-free at this point. But I do believe in being open and sharing what I am working on. We will be using this editor at our upcoming International Legislation Unhackathons (http://legalhacks.org) this coming […]

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Common Identifiers or a Common Data Format. What is more important?

I just read this excellent post by Tom Bruce, et. al. from the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell University Law School.

Tom’s post brought to mind something I have long wrestled with. (Actually so long that it was a key part of my job working on CAD systems in the aerospace industry long ago). I sometimes wonder if having common identifiers isn’t more important than having a common data format. The reason is that being able to unambiguously establish relationships is both very difficult and very useful. In fact, one of the reasons you want a common format is so that you can find and establish these identifiers.

I have used a number of schemes for identifiers over the […]

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Imagine All 50 States Legislation in a Common Format

Last week I expressed dissapointment over NCSL’s opposition to the DATA Act (H.R. 2146). Their reasoning is that the burden this might create on the state’s systems will not be affordable. Contrast this with the topic of the international workshop held in Brussels last week – “Identifying benefits deriving from the adoption of XML-based chains for drafting legislation“. The push toward more transparent government need not be unaffordable.

With that in mind, stop for a while and imagine having the text from all 50 states legislation publishing in a common XML format. Seem like an impossibly difficult and expensive undertaking doesn’t it? With all the requirements gathering, getting systems to cooperate, and getting […]