Gloat over my ignorance: massive legislation

[jpgray]

I understand legal writing must become a labyrinthine maze of formalities at times. I also understand that praise and condemnation on length alone is silly: if everything in the bill is good and reasonably concise, the longer the better; a terrible bill can be terrible in the span of a single page. Flipping through a massive binder for the cameras is not a thoroughgoing critique of a bill's provisions.

But I also understand that as the best place to hide a nasty book is a library, the best place to hide a nasty clause would be a massive bill. The income tax bill of 1913 was eighteen pages. The Social Security act of 1935 was sixty-four pages. What is the primary factor of bloat in modern bills, which now break 400,000 words at times?

What exactly is the process for such a monster? My meager understanding: the OLC drafts ideas to bill by request, legislators, experts, staffers (and lobbyists!) shift this and that around, and then it is printed and delivered. To do this in anything resembling a timely fashion, must these massive bills be some sort of small-bill Frankenstein's monster, composed of pieces and bits of formerly-drafted bills, all stitched together? I know this happens with spending bills, but what of the big reform legislation--health care, finance, etc.? Similar Frankenstein's monsters, or built mostly from the ground up? How much of the bill language is drafted from legislator ideas by the OLC, and how much is drafted by lobbyists, experts and other outside groups, tailor-made for insertion?

(Told you it was ignorance)

[rucky]

1. Alan Grayson wrote a 4-page Medicare buy-in bill.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/03/10/alan-graysons-four-page-medicare-buy-in-bill-introduced/

[walldude]

3. That was the best solution to the HCR bill too

Hartmann was on it for months, there was no down side and it wasn't even considered. :mad:

[rucky]

4. The best solution by far.

It could've been enacted the next day. It was a turnkey plan.

[walldude]

2. Man all I know is once they finish with all the legalese

they come up with bullshit wording to make it easy to swallow.

See it's not a big fuck you to people making 20 or families making 40 grand a year, it's not a danger to Social Security it's a.. Payroll Tax HOLIDAY! That's right folks break out the tree and the ornaments, cook a Turkey, invite the family.. IT'S A HOLIDAY! Woo Hoo!!!

[DCKit]

5. It's all back doors and loopholes.

With the right legal team, the corporations and wealthiest 2% can subvert at will.

[jpgray]

6. But who writes these things in specific, and in what proportion?

We have a smorgasbord of discrete ideas from legislators, lobbyists and experts, right? But is it the LCO alone that turns raw ideas into the legal language of the bill, or do firms for affected industry do some of the direct bill language? On HCR, I know Baucus's draft had little of the specific legal details, and was mostly the unrefined ideas. Who comes up with the lion's share of these ideas for such a bill, and who translates the lion's share into legislative language?

[DCKit]

7. Great example. Baucus let an industry insider/lobbyist write that health care bill.

It took them what, two weeks? Until they started up with cancellations, recessions and denying policies.

It doesn't get any better than that - for the corporations.