The curiously named Data Science for Social Good fellowship program at the University of Chicago has developed the “Legislative Influence Detector.” According to researchers, the Legislative Influence Detector (LID) “helps watchdogs turn a mountain of text into digestible insights about the origin and diffusion of policy ideas and the real influence of various lobbying organizations.”
Researchers using data collected by the Sunlight Foundation studied more than 500,000 state bills, and 2,400 pieces of model legislation written by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the liberal State Innovation Exchange, formerly known as the American Legislative and Issue Campaign (ALICE) and other lobbying organizations.
LID allows researchers to find similarities among bills which have been introduced across the country.
Researchers say that government transparency is “key to democracy, as is the public’s ability to understand the true influences at work in the legislative systems charged with their representation and protection. LID shines a light in the dark places of the legislative process, adding transparency and accountability to state government.”
While some call ALEC a shadowy group, it claims to be an “organization dedicated to the advancement of free market and limited government principles through a unique “public-private partnership.”
“ALICE is run out of a university-based think tank, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy,” according to Madisson.com. It is supported through government grants.
In her article, When Lobbyists Write Legislation, This Data Mining Tool Traces The Paper Trail, Jessica Leber notes that the LID team created the graphic (below) “that presents the relative influence of ALEC and ALICE in different states. The thickness of each line in the graphic correlates to the percentage of bills introduced in each state that are modeled on either group’s legislation. So a relatively liberal state like New York is mostly ALICE bills, while a “swing” state like Illinois has a lot from both groups.
The value of having bills based on the work of other states is a matter of debate. What is not a matter of debate, is the fact that ordinary members of the public have little – to no input – into the development of laws.
