Practical Experiences that Can Help Practitioners Modernize Legislative Bodies and Leverage AI Effectively

Written on September, 2024

Feb 12, 2025

This publication is part of the book “Artificial Intelligence in Legislative Services: Principles for Effective Implementation”. To download the entire book, use the button below:

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Introduction

The legislative process is at an interesting inflection point for a number of reasons. First, one of the silver linings from the COVID Pandemic has been the worldwide connection of many who are interested in modernizing their parliaments and its various processes. International webinars have connected parliamentarians, officers, and staff from across nationalities, highlighting many similarities at the institutional level.

Second, parliamentarians have come to recognize that by incorporating digital technology they are better able to understand their constituents’ desires and the impacts of their legislative decisions as well as to respond in a more timely manner to perceived needs.

Third, digital technology affords the possibility of improving the efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility in the legislative process, especially through the application of artificial intelligence.

Fourth, legislative drafting, which has all too frequently been an neglected in the policymaking process and viewed as an obstacle and not a tool, is now receiving more attention.

Fifth, these developments are challenging existing processes and traditions, many of which are centuries old, paper-based, and slow to change. Finally, parliaments and their institutions are frequently under-resourced.

Drafting Office

Central to these developments is the drafting office, whosecore function is to express parliamentarians’ solutions in legislative language to the constituent problems If enacted into law, these solutions carry out the intended purpose.

Drafting is central to governing. The Code of Hammurabi, for example, expresses a policy in writing on stone. Whether the medium is stone, paper, or digital, the policy of the governing authority must be expressed. Policy making and policy expression are intertwined, yet separate. In today’s world, a well-crafted draft requires knowledge in four realms: subject matter, politics, law, and law writing (or drafting). Typically this expertise comes from three sources:policymaker (comprised of the parliamentarian and their staff), subject matter experts, and drafting experts. The interaction of these three roles produces the draft. An able drafter with less subject matter knowledge requires more input of subject matter expertise. A generalist drafter needs a subject matter specialist while a drafter with subject matter specialty can function well with a more generalist policymaker.

The drafting function consists of receiving a request to express a policy in legislative language, understanding the problem to be addressed in both factual and legal terms, and crafting a legal solution using appropriate legislative language. Drafting occurs in a dynamic, legislative environment where efficiency and draft quality are often in tension. Efficiency is typically of great interest in the political process while quality is of great interest in the legal implementation of the resultant law. Efforts to improve the efficiency of the drafting process have often accrued to the benefit of the political process. Yet, meeting speed and timing requirements of the political process may result in sacrificing legal quality in order to achieve political success in the short term. The digital revolution with its large datasets and the application of artificial intelligence has the potential to assist the drafter in efficiently producing quality drafts.

Introduction of the Computer and Increased Risk

The introduction of the computer for the drafting process greatly reduced the time required to move from thought to the written word. Yet there are risks in introducing more technology into the drafter's environment. Drafts and related legal advice are "credence goods", which means that their quality is difficult for legislators to assess before using them in the legislative process. As a proxy for this assessment, the parliamentarians and their staff rely on the word of the drafter. The drafters must be able to rely on the technology for assistance. If unexpected errors or results occur, this trust can be undermined. Increasing the speed of drafting also increases the likelihood of errors, which reduces the credence good value attached to the draft. Small word changes become easier to make and carelessness in process (not necessarily the individual actors) can become unavoidable, despite the emphasis on quality drafting. The push for speed can lead to an over-reliance on quick turnarounds, resulting in bills being scheduled for consideration before the language is ready. This increases the pressure on all involved to produce a draft and increases the risk that it will be insufficient to implement the intended policy. Components of this risk include the risk that the draft will:

lack internal consistency.
fail to execute technically or fit appropriately into current law.
conflict with existing law.
be unintentionally vague or ambiguous.
be over- or under-inclusive.
will encounter parliamentary procedural issues during the course of its consideration, including unwanted committee referral or points of order.
if enacted, will be legally unenforceable.

Where might digital tools increase both efficiency and quality in the drafting environment? What are the pain points in the drafting process that can be addressed?

Drafting Process

Drafting begins long before the drafter is engaged. First, the policymaker must identify a problem to be addressed and the desired solution, or policy. Broadly speaking, this is the constituent and stakeholder engagement stage. There can be valuable conversations during this stage with a drafter as the specifics of the problem are identified and the policy refined. Then, sufficiently specific drafting instructions must be provided to the drafter. A truism expresses a critical aspect of drafting: a drafter cannot produce a draft for a policy unless they understand the problem, the policy, the solution, and the law. When drafting instructions are not sufficiently clear, more clarifying conversations before and during the drafting process are needed. Failure to engage in these conversations results in false drafting starts and drafts that do not reflect the desired policy. Better guides, such as well-designed dynamic forms and chatbots, made for the use of the requester, can lead to clearer, more complete instructions as well as identify information that will be needed. The information collected by these guides and chatbots could be passed automatically through the intake stage of the drafting office to the appropriate team.

Request Intake

Drafting offices have two general methods for receiving requests. Most requests come through a central intake process. Those policymakers (committees and leadership) with established relationships with drafting teams will make their requests directly to the appropriate drafters. In the case of central intake, the intake team triages requests and refers them to the appropriate team. This central point can become a bottleneck at times of high request volume. Stress on the intake team increases as the speed of routing of requests increases. Inevitably, backlogs develop and errors in the referral of these requests increases. Valuable drafting time can be lost. There is increased friction within the office and between the office and policymakers. Digital technology allows routine requests directly to the appropriate drafting team, while incomplete or complex requests can be routed to the intake team for personal handling. However, improvements to the intake system without additional improvements to the drafting system simply increases the backlog with the drafting teams.

Heart of Drafting

The heart of drafting requires a knowledgeable drafter writing with the conventions appropriate to the legislative practice of the jurisdiction concerned. It also requires access to current law. The conventions used in the United States Federal system are well described in the Legislative Drafter’s Desk Reference, 3rd Edition: Best Practices in Drafting Federal and State Laws and Regulations, by Sandra Strokoff and Lawrence Filson (The Sunwater Institute, 2024).

The Comparative Print Suite, developed by the Legislative Counsel and the Clerk of the House illustrates the development of the component parts of drafting and their development over time. There are several insights and lessons to be learned from this project which can be applied to other modernization efforts in the legislative drafting area.

Comparative Print Suite

Although the Comparative Print project formally began in 2016, its genesis is in the early days of the Office of the Legislative Counsel (HOLC). HOLC was founded in 1919, and the first drafters brought a professional approach to drafting that began to introduce uniformity and consistency to Federal law. This approach could be highly technical, making cut and bite amendments to law difficult to understand to the non-specialist reader.

Therefore, in 1929 the House of Representatives adopted a rule that required committee reports accompanying bills reported from committee to contain a comparative print showing how the bill would change law. This requirement, known as the Ramseyer Rule after its author, Rep. Ramseyer, has been in effect in the House in some form since then. Over time, HOLC reduced the laborious task of researching the law for each draft by developing and maintaining notebooks of the up-to-date version of nonpositive laws that were commonly amended. These notebooks consisted of the original statute with penciled repeals and taped inserts. Positive laws were available from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel and required much less effort to research. From time to time these compilations would be typeset by the Government Printing Office and the process would continue. These compilations were maintained by HOLC to expedite both drafting and the Ramseyer process. They were also used by House committees and agencies. (See Office of the Law Revision Counsel discussion of positive and nonpositive law: positive law codification (house.gov)) Updating these compilations could be slow and tedious, as the cut & bite amendments contained in an amendatory statute were reversed to incorporate the enacted changes into the law. These Ramseyers served as quality assurance for the drafter, both for the technical execution of the amendments into law and to read the law in its “as amended” form to check its meaning. Downstream from the drafters, Members, staff, and stakeholders used the Ramseyers as a way to quickly read the proposal in context.

This manual process for producing Ramseyers served the House for 75 years until 2004, when bills, resolutions, and amendments began to be created and maintained in a XML format, the common data format chosen pursuant to a Congressional mandate. As part of the XML data revolution, HOLC developed and maintained a software tool for internal use to assist in the creation of Ramseyers and to create and maintain its growing set of compilations of nonpositive Federal law. This tool could only be used by highly trained specialists and required manual intervention and judgment to achieve the desired quality.

In 2010 HOLC integrated a variation of the Ramseyer tool into its XML authoring tool. This advancement gave HOLC drafters the ability to create on-demand mini-Ramseyers from within the authoring tool for the purpose of their own use to quality check their work before providing drafts to Members and staff. However, these tools did not achieve an acceptable level of accuracy for distribution outside of HOLC. Yet, Members and staff were working with greater legislative complexity, a faster process and larger documents, increasing the need for Ramseyers in more stages of the process.

The situation changed in 2017 at the beginning of the 116th Congress with an amendment to the Rules of the House. The House required the Clerk and the Legislative Counsel of the House, by the end of the calendar year, to begin providing documents that were the approximate equivalent to the Ramseyer, but now at the stage of the process when changes were made at the Rules Committee and before the document could be considered on the House floor. This is the beginning for the development of the Comparative Print Suite (CPS). Each project should have an identified beginning point.

First, the Clerk and HOLC identified and categorized the challenges, which were of three kinds: political, technological, and resources. Politically, we began by identifying the stakeholders, which included the Clerk, the Legislative Counsel, the Parliamentarian, House leadership, the Rules Committee, the Committee on House Administration, and the Member who succeeded in making the change to the House rules. We committed to working in a nonpartisan way, including majority and minority, and to communicate with all of them throughout the process. This group early on identified the defining value: accuracy of product. Members would be using these products to engage in the legislative process. They had to trust the product before they could rely on it.

There were several collateral issues to face before building the software tool itself. The United States does not have a unified code of laws. Those that had been digitized existed in disparate formats. In addition, the digitized XML compilations, developed for the purpose of producing a nice print was not clean at a data level. Relevant data sources had to be identified, existing documents conformed to the appropriate XML standard, data processes standardized, and databases built specifically for the CPS tool. Much of this already existed in part due to the development of the aforementioned HOLC internal process.

An important lesson is to develop in tandem when possible and to collect small wins along the way. An initial set of 40 Statute Compilations were published in PDF form as a collection on the GPO website in late 2018. As of August 2024, there are over 2,400 documents in this collection, available in both PDF and the USLM version of XML. These documents are available to the public at no charge.

Perhaps the key challenge was improving the accuracy. To do this, the bills on congress.gov were analyzed for amendatory instructions and a natural language developed to express this structure as well as the citation patterns used in drafting. Subject matter experts from HOLC assisted in identifying patterns and in verifying output as the CPS tools were developed. In addition, using software to interpret language is not easy. The early XML-based tools used various forms of pattern matching, rudimentary at best, given the complexity of legislative documents, to identify where in a document an amendment was striking or inserting language. However, the structured nature of XML documents allowed for disparate XML formats to be conformed to a common standard. Additionally, citation work from a previous project proved invaluable for identifying precise locations for amendments. Another key lesson: build upon prior work and learn from it.

As discussed earlier, a successful draft requires drafting expertise (legal and writing), subject matter expertise, and detailed knowledge of the policy to be drafted. These characteristics are rarely found in one person. The very thrust of the project was to give the policymaker and the subject matter expert the ability to easily read the law in its proposed form. This required extensive engagement with non-drafters and a user design team to assist with the user experience. The project also identified the need for educational opportunities and notifications from within the tool itself of those situations where changes were not executed and why. Once these were sufficiently developed, a pilot group was formed and trained. Their feedback was solicited, and suggestions were incorporated into later releases. Training was required for user access to those portions of the software deemed to require additional knowledge to understand the results given by the software.

The design and development of the tool, which integrated the user interface with the natural language processing and the laws database, took place before releasing a minimum viable product. At the time of release, the product had been used by HOLC personnel, experienced committee counsels, and few more general legislative assistants. Additional work included increased server capacity, user security to maintain confidentiality, and cybersecurity checks. The project continues to solicit user feedback and maintains a log of possible future enhancements.

The Comparative Print Suite was built upon existing tools and knowledge, successfully making an important legislative tool available to a larger user group. There are other components within the drafting office that can be modernized to address current and future needs of the legislative process. In addition to speed and quality, other values to be protected are confidentiality of requests, data integrity, and system security. These values together are key ingredients in the foundation of trust, which is a key element of the legislative process. Parliamentarians must be able to trust that their requests for assistance, policy goals, and legislative strategy will be held in confidence. Drafters must understand these goals and the strategy relating to a proposal in order to produce a draft appropriate for use in the process. Previously, the draft has been described as a credence good. The drafter is providing a credence service. When considering areas to modernize, these values that build and maintain trust must always be paramount.

Additional Aspects of Drafting Offices and Project Considerations

Legislative data and the processes that rely on it must always be built and maintained with the highest standards. The United States Congress uses the USLM XML format, which is fully described here: Legislative Documents in XML at the United States House of Representatives. Drafting in this format and maintaining data in it allows for seamless use throughout the process without the problem of being translated between formats. Policymakers provide drafting instructions and drafts to the drafting office in a variety of formats. These formats must be translated into the standard legislative data format. These translations of data risk incorrect formatting and loss of data. Therefore, entering policy data in the appropriate format from the start is a modernization project that has the potential to improve collaboration between the policymaker and the drafter, with a result of increased quality and efficiency.

One can imagine a legislative draft as having a reading side, typically in PDF or Microsoft Word form, and a data side. The United States Congress uses USLM XML as its data format. Because it is in XML, its structure and tagging are important for downstream use. The data itself can be reused. However, a document management system is required. This data is typically of high quality and the database is controlled by the drafting office. The data should be maintained in a centralized repository with storage, management, and retrieval aspects. The system should be capable of versioning and showing track changes for improved collaboration with clients. This data can be used for searches and as a source of data for AI tools, so long as confidentiality is appropriately maintained.

The authoring tool for drafting directly in the XML format should be integrated with quality assurance features, such as spelling, style, and grammar checking. It should also be able to integrate with legal research databases to allow for the transfer of data easily into the draft with appropriate citations. The authoring tool and its related database should contain templates to improve both quality and efficiency.

Teamwork and the ability to work on legislative drafts both synchronously and asynchronously has become an important collaboration need. The main challenge here lies in the mismatch of expertise—legal and drafting expertise, policy expertise, and subject matter expertise. While this is a technology issue in part, it is mostly a people challenge, requiring participants to be willing to receive and accept the various perspectives. And, although not directly part of this chapter, the legislative process itself may need to be adjusted to take into account review from these various expertise positions to ensure that quality is maintained at the highest level.

Finally, data is essential when deciding where to focus modernization efforts and measuring their impact. The critical question is: what should be measured? Collecting data on various drafting processes, turnaround times, and other document metrics is one approach. To begin this process, one might ask about the pain points in the process, bottlenecks, performance, and resource allocation.

A Word on AI

As part of the review of the current systems and planning for the future, the role and capabilities of AI to improve the process will likely come up. When doing so, it's essential to follow the principle of "do no harm".. Be wary of the new shiny toy. Always follow the institution’s technology governance policies. Introducing a new technology requires the hard work of technological development and change management that goes with it. AI marketing suggests an implementation approach first and then figure out what went wrong. Be wary of proceeding this way. Development for the legislative process needs the opposite approach. There are no second chances. Project failure risks consequences for all who are associated with the project. The primary focus on using AI as part of a legislative tool kit is to assist human judgment, not replace it. AI is not a substitute for wisdom. However, there is a place for natural language processes (see the Comparative Print Suite above), machine learning, predictive analytics, and carefully chosen large language models. Some or all of these could be harnessed to increase efficiency by automating routine tasks, assisting with legal research, and improving draft quality.

Addressing Risk

While there is inherent risk in any project, there is a way to proceed. One can begin by analyzing the current system and identifying those pain points, bottlenecks, or areas to improve. In doing so, always keep in mind how the improved system fits into the overall framework. Simply moving a pain point or bottleneck to another part of the system may not be desirable. One should at least be working with the impacted part of the system as part of the project to minimize its negative impact.

Select a project and identify the goals to be achieved. Plan by beginning small, set benchmarks, incorporate iterative development methodologies with continuous feedback and testing and the big picture steps needed to reach the goal. Map all risks and work to minimize them throughout the project. Also. identify all stakeholders and their respective roles in the project, including users, clients and beneficiaries, and those providing resources for the development. Understand the resources that are available, including people, funds, and technical resources. Communicate with them early in the process and throughout using appropriate change management to keep all informed. Solicit their input and feedback. Address all concerns that arise. Celebrate small wins along the way, including rolling out a viable product as early as possible. Make liberal use of pilot groups and grow them over time. Don’t wait for direction - take initiative. Once the project begins, commit to it.

There are other steps to be taken to mitigate the risks of projects to modernize parliaments that impact legislative drafting. These are steps that apply to the people involved in the legislative process. Ensure that drafters remain relevant by being fully trained and remain up to date in legal developments and drafting best practices. Continuous professional development opportunities for drafters should be encouraged. Drafters should strive to develop and maintain relationships with their clients to promote collaboration throughout the drafting process and to address issues and concerns while they are small. The drafting office should work with parliamentarians and key policy staff to encourage legal and policy review of legislative drafts at each stage of the process. These reviews can be informal and ideally would simply become “this is the way we do things”.

Even the best planned modernization projects will face obstacles and these should be expected and planned for. Resistance by some to change, including refusing to participate in the project and actively undermining the effort. If attempts to clearly articulate the advantages of the project and work through the concerns do not resolve the obstacle, a person may need to be replaced, especially where that person is actively undermining the effort.

Other Constraints

All projects are subject to financial limitations. Accurate budgeting and tight project management are of primary importance to keeping the project on time and within budget. Pivoting to the next best alternative may be necessary. For this reason, prioritizing the most important components of the project to develop the viable product is important. After the project successfully delivers this product, then future enhancements can be delivered in regularly planned updates, subject to the availability of funds. Funding may become more accessible as users begin to see the product’s benefits and future improvements.

One should always expect to encounter technical difficulties during any modernization project. The hardware and software environment are complex. Developing, implementing, and maintaining additional complexity into an already complex environment will produce its own complexities. Particular attention should be paid to protecting sensitive legislative information from unauthorized access.

Conclusion

This chapter has provided a high-level view of change in the legislative drafting process through intentional modernization of information technology systems. In drawing this to a close, there are several matters to keep in mind. First, the legislative environment is people-based and highly relational. While technological developments can assist people in doing their jobs, it cannot replace them. Second, throughout any project, it is essential to keep the problem and its solution at the forefront.

With these two thoughts, creating a tool that effectively serves its intended users requires the participation of a user design team throughout the development process. Successful change in the legislative environment requires collaboration among many diverse entities in the House, subject matter experts, technologists, and contractors. All must adopt a shared understanding of the problem and solution and be committed to working together. Where possible, build on the foundation of prior projects and incorporate lessons learned from them.

It's also important to recognize that technology is constantly evolving, and processes are subject to ongoing change. Use software tools that are appropriate for the project and resist the temptation to use the latest "shiny toy". Always keep the users in mind, not just in the design of any tools developed but by providing comprehensive training and support.