This is often especially cynical because [popular thing x] is often something that neither party wants to pass. So a very recent example of this was an act against insider trading by politicians, that was bundled with a voter id law. Neither side wants to clamp down on insider trading from politicians, so the entire act was DOA. It was nothing but bread and circuses.

In the present day, mainstream journalists won't be meaningful advocates for democracy and the public interest any time soon. It's time to acknowledge that this idea is wishful thinking. The root cause is changes to the law like the Telecom Act of 1996 which allowed for the consolidation of old media under a few corporations.

For many years these mainstream journalists have been required to support corruption, cronyism, the centralization of power, and the increase of corporate power in order to retain their jobs. The law needs to be changed before they can become a net benefit to society again.

However you are proposing that journalists as a homogenous group do some extra work. I think that's a great thing but I don't get why you say the press aren't doing their job when they are at an historical low of compensation and respect.

If sounds like you are outsourcing your rage at the legislature and the press and journalists are the problem?

Sticking to the FTA someone made a first step in version tracking legislative texts but you do not think they've done enough?

Well, it's practically impossible to get a person to do something when their paycheck depends on their not doing it.

The problem is, barely anyone is willing to pay the press for doing this job.

Outrage farming and clickbait make money, honest reporting does not.

Of course a tool itself doesn't solve the problem. You need somebody to use the tool. But the tool makes it easier to solve the problem.

They are. The history of the USC is public. This is one way of visualizing it. It’s good. But I want to see the advantage of this presentation.

Example page for the traffic code https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU19970...

First PDF is the original, second PDF is the unified version, then there's links - 4 others changed, 4 explicitly obsoleted, 12 implicitly obsolete, 707 administrative orders, 12 Constitutional Tribunal rulings, 11 previous + current unified versions, 212 patches, 14 relevant EU directives.

Only if those bold reforms weren't in the interests of the people they serve. Risky bipartisan compromises should still be transparent along with what was gained in exchange for them. If the people feel that the compromise wasn't worth it they should be empowered to vote accordingly come election time. It's the job of representatives to assure the people who elected them that they are doing a good job and if they can't do that they deserve to lose their position. Refusing to support bold reforms that the people they represent want, or refusing to compromise when it would be beneficial to voters would become just as costly to their career.

> It takes significant work to produce successful legislation, and much of that work can be productively and safely done without direct public oversight.

Often most of that work is done entirely for them by corporations and lobbying groups and "law makers" just vote how they are paid to vote without even reading the bill put before them. Just because something can be done in secrecy doesn't make that the ideal way to do it. We've have extremely poor results with the system as it stands right now, so a change to introduce more transparency and accountability seems like a very good idea.

> This is the same reason an individual might value a private journal.

A public servant representing the people by making edits to laws and performing the duties they were elected to carry out is nothing at all like someone keeping a private journal. Their work is not their personal affairs, it is the public's affairs. How that work is being done matters to the public. Legislators would still remain free to go home at the end of the day and write in their private diary all they like.

> If you have a problem with your representative’s behavior, call their office and ask about it.

When their behavior is conducted in secrecy behind closed doors the public doesn't have the ability to hold them accountable for it, which is exactly why it takes place in secrecy. Increasing the public's ability to hold elected officials accountable by increasing transparency can only improve outcomes for voters, and it would certainty be inconvenient for elected officials who want to put their own interests above the interests of the people who elected them.

I'm not saying lawyers aren't really really expensive, but you don't have to spend a long time digging into just a simple question like "what parts of the law are no longer enforceable after a supreme court decision" before you start to understand why they charge the prices they do.

Thing which are public law should be publicly accessible.

There's an online portal for NEC code book, but they made it awful, no search, no hyper links, the bare minimum.

I used codex in computer mode to collect the relevant pages to my project. (Electricity to shed).

Also, because how the judicial branch decides case law needs to be reviewable by the People, so that we can inform the various legislatures to adjust the law if the judicial system is not ruling to the will of the People.