[pratheekrebala]

Hi everyone! I'm a news developer at the Center for Public Integrity. I worked on this project. Happy to answer any questions.

This project was basically an all-pairs text similarity problem. We were able to identify a lot of copycat legislation addressing a wide range of issues from e-cigarettes and prescription opiods to online sports betting, "religious freedom" and undocumented immigration. Some from previously known groups like ALEC and others from previously unknown interest groups.

We also have a public facing tool in the works that would allow anyone to track such measures in near real-time. We will be launching the tool and open sourcing the code in the coming weeks!

Also, do check out our launch story in this series about one such model bill that would allow car dealers to resell cars with active recalls. And keep an eye out for more stories about model legislation!

https://publicintegrity.org/state-politics/copy-paste-legisl...

[tptacek]

This is awesome work and should be the top comment on the thread.

[webninja]

What can we, as citizens, do to stop this from happening? I’m tired of being outraged from all of the corruption or simply the ineptitude.