{"id":437,"date":"2011-04-22T15:42:16","date_gmt":"2011-04-22T20:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/?p=437"},"modified":"2025-01-31T14:35:54","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T19:35:54","slug":"collaborative-open-democracy-with-lexpop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/voxpop\/2011\/04\/22\/collaborative-open-democracy-with-lexpop\/","title":{"rendered":"Collaborative, Open Democracy with LexPop"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Raise your hand if you\u2019ve heard (or said) a variation of one of these tired truisms: “Politics is dominated by lobbyists and spending.” “Policy making has degenerated into a glorified yelling match.” “Our country has never been more polarized.” “Today\u2019s online communities foster echo chambers of the like-minded rather than fora for discussion.”<\/p>\n

Is your hand raised? Because ours certainly are.<\/p>\n

The only thing anyone can seem to agree on today is that the current U.S. political system is broken. We\u2019re mired in a confluence of corporate spending, ugly discourse, and voter voicelessness.<\/p>\n

LexPop<\/a> provides an open public platform for tackling these problems.<\/p>\n

Meet LexPop<\/strong><\/p>\n

LexPop<\/a> allows participants to collaborate in the creation of legislative bills — bills that are later introduced by actual legislators. At its most basic, LexPop is a Wikipedia<\/a> for creating public policy. (There\u2019s a lot more to it than that, as we\u2019ll explain below.) In our first project, Massachusetts Representative Tom Sannicandro (D-Ashland) — one of those actual legislators we\u2019re talking about — has agreed to introduce a net neutrality bill<\/a> created on LexPop.<\/p>\n

LexPop has two primary goals. Our first goal is to give the public a voice. We hope to provide a space for ordinary people (i.e., people who can\u2019t afford to hire lobbyists) to contribute substantively to public policy — to give their best ideas a fair hearing.<\/p>\n

As you know, lobbyists write the bulk of the legislation coming out of our various legislatures. LexPop provides a counterpoint to the current model — a way for the public to provide legislators with voter-created model legislation. A legitimate, 21st-century democracy will invite the public into meaningful collaboration<\/a>, and LexPop is part of the march in that direction.<\/p>\n

Our second goal is to determine the best way to achieve the first. That is, a compelling movement<\/a> is attempting to take governance into the 21st century, and organizations like PopVox<\/a> and OpenCongress<\/a> are doing great work. Several organizations and initiatives, including a government-sponsored effort in Brazil<\/a>, are trying to make it possible for citizens to help write legislation. But at this point, nobody knows the best way to make the co-creation of laws a reality. Our work will contribute to figuring out what\u2019s possible, what works, and what doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

How LexPop works<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are two ways to use LexPop. Our primary focus is on Policy Drives<\/a> — where legislators pledge to introduce bills written on the site. Policy Drives are somewhat analogous to what goes on at Wikipedia<\/a>, but LexPop provides more structure through the use of three specific phases:<\/p>\n