live_tv
Livestream Starting Soon
00
Hours
:
00
Minutes
:
00
Seconds
Up next in 10
Jon Roland explains how one has to draft the language of reforms one wants. With Lela Pittenger. Austin Constitution Meetup Jan. 25, 2010.
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
to it in other words you actually have
0:03
to draft the standards
0:06
now I did this kind of thing in 2002
0:10
and this came out before then it was the
0:13
approval of textbooks
0:16
and when I did then
0:19
is I took a computer a laptop and a
0:21
scanner into the mobile home where they
0:24
had all the textbooks
0:26
I was supposed to do that but I did
0:30
I scanned the boats
0:33
and then I went in and edited them
0:36
line by line
0:38
I found the uh the passages
0:42
that were
0:44
improper in my view incorrect
0:47
I took the wrong emphasis that left out
0:50
things
0:52
and I wrote
0:54
replacement passages they were similar
0:57
lengths so they could be dropped right
0:59
in the textbook without having to
1:01
reformat many pages
1:04
any of my testimony I said okay here's
1:07
my report replace this line with that
1:10
line this line with that line this line
1:12
with that line line by line by line
1:15
there are several textbooks
1:20
that is what made the difference
1:25
uh most almost all the testimony to add
1:30
this or take out that
1:32
uh in general terms was useless
1:37
uh
1:39
members of the State Board of Education
1:40
don't know how to respond to that kind
1:43
of testimony
1:45
you have to actually write stuff
1:50
I
1:53
um elsewhere um
1:55
this website
1:57
you will find a lecturer which is
2:00
I've given in different forms before
2:04
uh
2:05
what doesn't work
2:09
what doesn't work is to demand reforms
2:13
without providing the language of the
2:15
reforms
2:18
I like to cite as a general example
2:21
if you take a case to court
2:25
you might win the judgment
2:27
but if you don't draft the order
2:31
if you leave it to the judge or maybe
2:33
the judge will even ask opposing counsel
2:36
to draft the order
2:38
you won't probably you probably won't
2:40
get what you want
2:42
you may have won the case of loose but
2:44
actually lose it because you didn't
2:46
draft the order
2:49
and that's true throughout
2:51
politics and law
2:55
power goes to those who do the work
2:58
and doing the work means writing the
3:00
actual language
3:02
if you want a Bill in Congress or the
3:06
legislature to do what you want you have
3:09
to draft it
3:10
you can't just write a letter to your
3:12
Congressman or legislator say do
3:14
something about this
3:17
if you if all you do is ask some
3:20
decision maker to do something for you
3:23
what he's going to wind up doing is
3:26
doing something to you
3:30
you have to actually draft the language
3:34
when I was a volunteer on Capitol Hill
3:38
from about 1970s into the 72.
3:42
I didn't come with money
3:45
or control of a lot of votes
3:49
but I found that they needed staff work
3:53
I also found that a lot of the staff
3:56
work that was being done
3:58
four members of Congress was being done
4:00
by volunteer lobbyists like myself
4:05
of course some of them were paid
4:06
lobbyists
4:08
uh
4:09
the way you got access and influence was
4:13
to do staff work for them
4:16
one of the biggest kinds of Staff work
4:19
that I was asked to do
4:21
was to review legislation
4:24
when members of Congress introduced
4:26
twenty thousand bills
4:27
a year there's no way they can read them
4:30
all
4:31
there's no way their paid staffers can
4:33
read them all
4:35
there's no
4:37
way that they can have time to talk to
4:40
other members or their staffers about
4:43
what what's in those like those bills
4:46
most of whom are not going to be really
4:48
objective
4:51
so it was I made myself very very useful
4:54
by reviewing legislation
4:57
I go through the bill bill by Bill by
4:59
Bill
5:00
and point out the things that would be
5:04
reasons for the by the member that I was
5:06
volunteering for should either vote for
5:09
it or vote against it
5:11
or perhaps things that he would might
5:12
want to change
5:14
so I've started ah I drafted a lot of
5:16
amendments
5:18
and it wasn't very long before I was
5:20
drafting entire bills
5:24
so I learned through this process how to
5:27
draft legislation for the U.S Congress
5:31
later on I applied similar skills to
5:33
your rafting legislation for uh to say
5:37
legislature
5:39
that you can find an example of that on
5:41
constitution.org
5:45
it's not that difficult
5:48
what it mostly involves
5:51
because
5:52
legislation is now mostly codified
5:56
is you have to go through and find all
6:00
of the provisions
6:02
uh previous acts would be affected by
6:06
the legislation you're proposing
6:09
and
6:10
identify them and pointing out how they
6:13
would be changed
6:15
so if you were let's say you have a bill
6:18
that has the effect of repealing you
6:21
know 45 Provisions scattered throughout
6:24
the code you have to identify all those
6:27
provisions
6:28
and say they will repeal this provision
6:30
repeal that line repeal these words and
6:35
so forth you know a code section by code
6:37
section by code section
6:40
so what you're really doing is you're
6:41
editing the code
6:43
but your bill has to
6:46
to do to do that you know the title and
6:50
section and provision by provision
6:55
it's a research project
6:58
now the legislation you'll find on my
7:00
website I didn't have to do that because
7:03
I wasn't stopping on any previous
7:05
legislation
7:07
it was completely new
7:09
it was actually as it turns I was it was
7:12
a a new way of drawing congressional
7:15
districts
7:18
there's nothing in the code already in
7:21
the do that so I could just tack it on
7:24
give it a new a new section number and
7:26
it was all French on you
7:30
but in most cases you won't be able to
7:33
do that
7:36
now another thing about legislation you
7:39
have to know how to learn how to do
7:42
is how to anticipate all the ways it
7:45
could be misunderstood
7:48
because the important thing about laws
7:50
and legislation is that if they can be
7:53
misunderstood they will be
7:55
and probably in the worst possible way
7:59
so you have to think like either your
8:02
opponents or the screw-ups that are
8:05
going to have to apply this legislation
8:08
and say okay
8:10
if you turn this over to a bunch of
8:12
bureaucrats how can they screw it up
8:15
or if you uh left it to opposing lawyers
8:19
to litigate it how could they twist it
8:24
this is anticipating all the ways that
8:27
could be misinterpreted is a very very
8:29
Advanced art
8:33
very few lawyers know how to do this
8:36
very few Congressional staffers know how
8:39
to do it
8:40
certainly very few members of Congress
8:42
know how to do it as you can see by the
8:45
the work product
8:48
so uh
8:51
all I can say is it's a skill that can
8:54
be learned it's not learned very by very
8:56
many people
8:58
and it needs to be learned by more
9:00
people
9:02
but anyway it's a skill I've tried to
9:04
learn and to have to apply for uh in a
9:08
variety of ways
9:10
this legislation is an example other
9:14
legislation I've drafted
9:16
I drafted in the Constitutional
9:19
Amendments I've started work on a whole
9:22
new constitution for Texas
9:25
I've been busy
#Legal