ReadableLaws.org

Congress proposes over 5,000 bills and resolutions every year. When was the last time you read one? You're not alone. Even senators and representatives don't read them. Some bills are several thousand pages long, and they're filled with legalese that no one human can possibly sort through. This means that most bills do not undergo the public scrutiny they should before becoming law.

Using the same software that runs Wikipedia, ReadableLaws.org lets citizens decipher legislation line by line and turn it into plain English. After that, site members can analyze bills and explain their deeper implications. The result is a clear explanation of legislation and a concise, understandable copy of its full text.

In the fall of 2006, NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen threw out the idea of a Web site committed to reading all legislation. I approached him about it, and we have been working together on this site ever since.

I was a federal employee before coming to ITP, and my leaving the government was in part inspired by my frustration with its inefficiency lack of accountability from within and without.

Finally, over the past two years, I've come to adore the writings of Richard Feynman, and two of his stories were particularly influential in my desire for more government accountability and verbal clarity: his account of his time as a member of the Rogers Commission (investigating the Challenger disaster); and his stories about working on the California State Curriculum Commission as a textbook reviewer.

NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen sparked the initial idea for this site.

Also, a few books have been the motivation behind this project's participation and clarity undertones:

• Three works by Richard Feynman:
  
  • Personal Observations on the Reliability of the Shuttle (Appendix to the Rogers Commission Report on the Challenger disaster).
  
  
  • Mr. Feynman Goes to Washington, Feynman's personal account of his time on the Rogers Commission, as told in What Do You Care What Other People Think?.
  
  
  • Judging Books by Their Covers, Feynman's account of his time on the California textbook selection committee, as told in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman.
  
  
  
  
• First Democracy, Paul Woodruff


• Active Liberty, Justice Stephen Breyer.

I expect this community's early members to be people like me: civic-minded geeks. These people will probably make up the bulk of the contributors. Eventually, the number of non-contributing readers will outnumber the contributors, and I hope those readers are average citizens who just want to find out about legislation.

The site is based on MediaWiki, the same software that drives Wikipedia. I've modified it substantially to accommodate the site's content.