Pay attention to how this unfolds, it is important. This news is both fascinating and disturbing. Special interest groups write models of laws they want to be passed. Large verbatim copies of these models appear in bills and even final laws that are passed.

More than a year ago, I was asked to do the impossible. Help build an algorithm that could tease out what statehouse bills were created from model legislation (ie copy-paste legislation). Along with a terrific team @USATODAY and @azcentral. We did it. Here’s how. (THREAD)

— Rob O’Dell (@robodellaz) April 4, 2019

 

In a digital world, it is a trivial thing for writing professors to detect and verify when students have copied and pasted large portions of their writing assignments. Now it seems that Rob O’Dell and associates have devised a method to do the same thing for lawmakers taking shortcuts.