[lokar]

I'm willing to believe it was not an ad.

They are just lazy / understaffed. It's hard to make $ in journalism. A longstanding and popular way to cut corners is to let the industry you cover do most of the work for you. You just re-package press releases. You have plausible content for a fraction of the effort / cost.

[dylan604]

Unfortunately, government is like that were most bills are written by lobbyists and barely if at all modified by the actual congress critter sponsoring it.

[lokar]

I think that's much more common in state government (in the US).

Most bill in the US Congress are not actually meant to pass, they are just (often poorly written) PR stunts.

[phyzome]

Agreed. I don't think they're lying about it not being a paid advertisement. Like I said, they didn't deny the press release part.