Laws should be written by the public, not by elected representatives.
The concept of electing representatives to govern democracies was a practical necessity developed before the internet. Technology and society have evolved so dramatically since our law-making bodies were created that we now have the opportunity to dramatically improve on their output, representativeness, and effectiveness. Our representatives must continue to play a role in conducting oversight and in agenda setting, but much of their work should be replaced with more democratic and distributed institutions.
It is easy to see the weaknesses of our current system of representation. The lawmakers we elect to our Congress, to our state legislatures, and to our city councils:
- may spend at least half of their time fundraising
- are responsible for providing oversight on complex issues, like the internet, that they clearly don't understand at all
- have fewer staff every year even as our problems grow
- in many places are not well-componsated or don't even work full-time
- have websites "for the public" that look like this and this and this
- often introduce laws they didn't actually write but that were copied from models written by corporations or think tanks
- can trade individual stocks and sometimes get caught using their status to profit from industries they are supposed to oversee
- pass massive bills in the middle of the night to avoid public scrutiny
We can do far better - Openlaw's goal is to do just that.
We belive it's time to revist some of the core assumptions at the heart of our democracy, both in light of the fragility our system has come to exhibit and in what technology has made possible.
We need new principles to govern how law and policy is made in America:
- Our laws should promote the public interest, not the narrow priorities of a privileged or well-connected group
- Laws should be written in public view, not in secret - transparency builds trust and engagement, secrecy breeds cynicism and apathy.
- Crowds can generate more and better ideas than individuals or small teams
- If special interest groups want to push solutions to our challenges, they should do so in public view, with their ideas judged on their merits.
- We should have many competing ideas to choose from in solving our most difficult challenges
- Good ideas should spread and fork as fast as our fiber optic cables can take them
In order to make the crowdsourcing of law work at scale, we combine a GitHub-like editing and branching system with a rich and modern content model that allows large numbers of people to create, edit, and maintain engaging, innovate proposals.
Here's how it works:
- Register for an account on our platform
- Begin a new draft proposal (or fork someone else's), including some basic information like it's title, a header photo, the subject, and it's scope (national/state/local)
- Invite collaborators and decide who can edit, contribute, or comment
- Write a short, plain language summary that explains what problems you are addressing, what your proposal does, and who would be helped. This isn't your parents' legislation - embed videos and photos, link to other sites, and make your summary as understanding and engaging as possible.
- Translate your summary into full legal text or connect to legal experts to help you.
- Publish your proposal, share it, and build awareness.
Coming soon!