Toward a Blogosphere That Can Draft Law
New York City needs more blogs writing about the law directly, and how it should be changed
Initial idea from a tweet:
The world of city and state government needs relatively fewer bloggers saying “the government should do [x],” and relatively more saying “the local statute/rule should say [x].”
Legislative drafting, the actual law writing where the rubber meets the road, is one of the great deficits in city and state blogging today. But it’s a non-trivial technical bar to clear, and so also points to a broader sophistication gap. Put differently: it is a wonderful goal to strive towards.
The great thing about blogs is their more inherently experimental nature, as opposed to a think tank policy brief, so they’re great arenas to learn how to draft law.
I wrote this after publishing a piece that contained a few recommended revisions to the New York City charter. In my head, I was thinking something like “I would love to be reading tons of pieces just like this, from many perspectives. I wish there was a thriving ecosystem of bloggers writing about New York policy that regularly got into the actual law that needed to be changed—that would be so beneficial!”
The role of the blogosphere: the posting-to-policy pipeline
Why? Because the role of any good blogosphere is to be an ideas catalyst. Blogs allow ideas to surface from anyone who can type into a text editor and hit “publish.” And a mature, healthy one will have many wonderfully smart people throwing things into the intellectual soup all the time.
Not only does this maximize the production of new and good ideas, but a good blogosphere is an ecosystem to socialize them—stretch the Overton window for citizens and lawmakers alike.
Blogs help expand and improve the informal steps of lawmaking that occur before bills are introduced into legislatures. This is the “posting to policy pipeline,” and it’s an extremely real phenomenon.
Normally, there are relatively few people thinking about what New York City’s laws should be. You have the legislative division of the city council, legislative lawyers scattered throughout government, external drafters (usually lobbyists) who think about these things, and a few others. Despite the talent and intelligence of these individuals, it is far too few! Why on earth does NYC not have more people thinking about, and writing about, what its laws should be? It needs that, and it would be more fun and rigorous for us all.
And don’t we all want a citizenry where more people understand the law well enough to find it, read it, understand it, research it, and publish ideas about it? A self-governing society should not completely outsource this to professionals.
Legislative drafting is a good measure of rigor
Legislative drafting is…drafting legislation. Writing law. Writing bills. Etc. It’s a robust skillset that you have to learn, and it will reveal how much you understand about a particular policy area. Anyone can say “The government should do [x]!” But what words need to be changed, and where, for that to happen?1 If you start to ask yourself how to answer those questions, you will reveal how much, or little, you know. You can also see how much other people, like those running for office, know.
And if you blog, or want to blog, about New York City or State government, I hope you develop sufficient familiarity with the law that you can propose amendments to it!
But legislative drafting doesn’t need to be an intimidating skill that only “experts” do. It should be done by bloggers who are digging through the law, poking it, and wondering how it could be otherwise. People should fiddle with law like others fiddle with code (with interest and having a good time). A mature blogosphere that does this will also know the common pitfalls of just finding and reading the law. I want to read these blogs about New York City and State specifically, and I know many policymakers would too.
If you want an easy introduction into the conceptual skills and challenges of legislative drafting, I recommend getting it from the “dean of American legislative drafting” himself: Reed Dickerson. Read “How to Write a Law,” which was originally delivered as a speech in 1955 to a crowd of lawyers. The beginning of the speech is worth quoting at length:
At the outset I confess a sense of embarrassment that I feel whenever I talk or write about the problems of drafting. This comes from the fact that, unlike most legal topics, discussions of legislative drafting have to be conducted on a kindergarten level. Since the art of legal drafting in general, and of legislative drafting in particular, is only crudely developed, I can only talk about the most elementary matters to a sophisticated audience that is expecting me to be profound. This leaves me feeling like a man who is trying to explain the alphabet to a group of Ph. D.'s.
One reason why it is hard to teach people how to draft is that like all writing it looks easy. There is one thing upon which almost everyone prides himself, and that is his writing. This is especially true of lawyers. Not only do they underestimate the difficulties of writing but they tend to think of themselves as individually accomplished. It is hard to sell a man a new suit when he considers himself already well accoutered.
This poses a dilemma. If I am to make this subject clear to you, I must oversimplify it to the point of confirming your natural prejudices. On the other hand, if I am to paint a true impression, I must frighten or confuse you with a bewildering mass of principles, approaches, and details. I will do my best to take a middle course.
Another trouble with teaching drafting is that the instructor can't do it just by talking about it any more than he can teach you, just by talking, how to box or play the violin. There is no substitute for doing it yourself with the right kind of guidance. But, even with this reservation, there are some useful things we can talk about.
Technical and non-technical
One often hears about “technical” and “non-technical” people in certain fields, especially in technology and industry. Those designations often carry some form of approval or disapproval attached to them, but that’s not what I’m doing here.
I just want to point out that legislative drafting is a technical skill, and it is another way to consider a person “technical” or “non-technical.” It is also one of the many ways in which “politics” or “government” can be technical.
And if you’re wondering what I mean by “technical”: a specific, practical skill that usually involves specialized knowledge, or the use of specialized tools. These skills can often be measured with objective tests, and have clearcut correct and incorrect implementations. Of course, the line between technical and non-technical can blur.
No time like the present, especially with AI tools
Legislative drafting isn’t easy, but the onramps to learning it are better than ever. There are books, essays, and especially AI tools. The latter need to be used carefully, but they can help you explore.
For New York City and State bloggers, I recommend starting with these things (assuming you already know about the existence of Legistar, etc):
Learn about the different kinds of law, and where they can be found.
The New York City Council’s Bill Drafting Manual. It has a great introduction to the lawmaking process at the beginning, and gives you the technical terms and processes you’ll need to further explore.
The New York State Legislature’s Bill Drafting Manual.
House Office of the Legislative Counsel Guide to Legislative Drafting
AI chatbots like Claude or chatGPT. Use these in conjunction with the material above to guide your explorations, and it will probably work out well! The AI tools are getting better all the time, and they’re at the point where they can be reliable helpers for someone who knows how to prompt them with the right technical knowledge (which you can get from the bill drafting manuals).
DM me or leave a comment if you have any questions, or have trouble getting started!
Some examples of posts I’ve written with legislative drafting (or adjacent) skills
Actually implementing those words is another challenge, but you often need to get the words right first! A common not-quite-honest sidestep in the city political sphere is to ask someone what law needs to be passed to change something, and they will give you generalities or a comment about how “it’s really in implementation, not just passing a law.” This usually means they have no idea, cannot do legislative drafting, and are relying on external help to do those things for them. There’s no inherent problem with that in any individual case, but it represents a bad situation if legislators themselves have no basic legislative drafting capabilities. A Grand Legislator would be able to dive into the law immediately and with alacrity.