5 takeaways:
➀ So-called “model legislation” is found in statehouses across the nation. The practice of replicating the same bill in statehouse after statehouse is a well-entrenched feature of the American political system. But digital tools have made it easier for reporters to find such copycat legislation. Rui Kaneya, an investigative reporter for the Center for Public Integrity, and his colleagues built a tracker that allows user to enter language from one piece of legislation and see if it has appeared in other states. The “Copy, Paste, Legislate” series – a collaboration among the center, USA Today and the Arizona Republic – won the Goldsmith Prize, one of the nation’s top investigative reporting awards.
➁ Model legislation benefits corporate interests that have money to spend on lobbyists in 50 statehouses. One case study unearthed by Kaneya: model legislation that would allow used car dealers to continue selling cars that have been recalled, so long as they disclosed those recalls to customers somewhere deep in a stack of sales documents. Kaneya found that the bill was written by Automotive Trade Association Executives, an industry group. When Kaneya wrote his story, versions of auto dealers’ copycat bill had been introduced in 11 states, adopted in two and were under consideration in four others.
➂ Getting a handle on the true number of copycat bills is difficult – but it’s big. A USA Today/Arizona Republic analysis found at least 10,000 bills almost entirely copied from model legislation were introduced nationwide from 2010 to 2018; more than 2,100 of those were signed into law. Kaneya’s team ran a parallel analysis that found tens of thousands of bills with identical phrases. “There’s a whole bunch of bills that have big chunk of their text that are almost identical in many other states,” Kaneya said.
➃ Finding model legislation is a matter of zeroing in key phrases. Reporters on the lookout for copycat bills should focus on highly technical phrases and use trackers to see if they appear in other states’ bills. Finding that a piece of legislation has been replicated elsewhere is likely just the start of the reporting expedition. While sometimes it’s good enough to say something has been pushed by outside interests, Kaneya said that uncovering those interests makes for the best stories. “What agenda do they have? What kind of groups are they? … What are they up to and why are they pushing this stuff?” Kaneya said.
➄ Statehouse resources are available from NCSL and NGA. The National Conference of State Legislatures and the National Governors Association both have extensive resources journalists can use to compare what’s happening in their states with goings-on elsewhere. NCSL tracks 1,400 issue areas, and has a bill tracker, updated weekly. NGA has a Center for Best Practices, which documents how different states are handling COVID-19, budgets, Medicaid, education and a range of other issue.
This program was funded by Arnold Ventures. NPF is solely responsible for the content.
