How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

Re:How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request by gammateam on Sunday November 25, 2018 @09:24PM (#18530564)

Existing platforms have limitations

My main problem is that many laws are written as: “Hereby strikes section b of USC1788(1)(iii) and replaced the word or with and”

And with this kind of system it would be standardized already on how to see what the modifications look like, or at least jump to that old version of the law easily

When the final laws are all merged together after a passed bill makes simple instructions instead of the plain text law, it would be easy to see the version history of that section of the law, or act

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Re:How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request by rhizome on Sunday November 25, 2018 @09:56PM (#18530697)

Yep. Like in the Delaware URL posted by GP, in the first few lines we see, "This section amends Section 18-101..." which is not linked. I don't know if this platform allows one to link to a specific version of a law, but it would seem like a logical next step to help it happen one way or another. A lot of it is probably automatable.

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Re:How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request by gammateam on Sunday November 25, 2018 @10:47PM (#18530899)

Oh thats too perfect

Thanks! All the other comments have been “hey the system you described has been around for many years, with all the problems you described but I didnt notice those just going to make a rebuttal to your idea for rebuttal’s sake”

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Re:How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request by rhizome on Sunday November 25, 2018 @11:03PM (#18530973)

I wonder how much this could be genericized to all (or most, or even some) states, let alone the US Code, regulations, etc. Actually, state formats and whatnot could be plugins or compilation switches.

I've actually thought about this for some years, but idly, and I haven't found the time yet to get started. It just seems like an excellent and obvious-to-me use for HTML.

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Re:How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request by azernik on Monday November 26, 2018 @02:46AM (#18531761)

The California legislature has this feature - the default landing page gives you that legal diff format, but if you hit the "Today's Law as Amended" tab you get a handy word-oriented diff: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.x...

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Re:How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request by gammateam on Monday November 26, 2018 @01:25PM (#18535578)

Nice! I would like to move the goal post a BIT further, and also have annotations of case law that actually used any of those clauses.

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Re:How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request by will_brown on Monday November 26, 2018 @08:40AM (#18533240)

So the bill I linked to includes a link to a PDF of the original bill which passed, if on the other hand there were changes you would see a pdf for each version of the bill.

Florida has a search function for their statutes that allows you to then select the year/version of the law. If the Law was amended in a given year in the annotations there are “redline versions” of the law pre amendment, with changes and final.

So again similar to what you describe but as you say...limitations to existing systems. Obviously standardization is also another problem, it would be hard enough to work with federal code and 50 states but the reality is each county and city/municipality can have their own bodies of laws, rules, regulations and ordinances...so thousands of bodies of law, in the US alone.

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