ABSTRACT

Legislative drafting in the United States Congress is a dynamic process with many actors working to revise both a bill’s policy and language. Rather than a central drafting office or government agency responsible for drafting bills, legislative language and amendments come from many sources: Congressional committee staff, the House and Senate Offices of Legislative Counsel, special interest lobbyists, and executive agencies. The hope is that bills become stronger and better drafted as it moves through the process; but that is not always the case. In addition, Congress still does not use a single standard drafting style. Still, there have been improvements in recent decades. For example, the House of Representatives developed a preferred drafting style and created a manual to guide drafters. However, Congress can and should do more to improve legislative quality. In this article I suggest several reforms: empowering the committee chairs to not just guide legislation through Congress, but promote better quality legislation; requiring greater drafting style standardisation; creating new materials and trainings to assist legislative actors, particularly committee staff, to recognise defective drafting and appreciate the value of careful drafting practices; and creating a advisory commission that will bring together key drafting participants to propose further reforms.

摘要

美国国会的立法起草是一个动态的过程，许多参与者都在努力修改该法案的政策和措辞。立法语言和修正案不是来自中央起草办公室或负责起草法案的政府机构，而是来自许多方面：国会委员会工作人员，众议院和参议院立法顾问办公室，特殊利益游说者和执行机构。希望该法案在整个过程中不断完善和完善。但这并非总是如此。此外，国会仍未使用单一的标准起草样式。尽管如此，近几十年来有所改善。例如，众议院制定了首选的起草样式，并创建了指导起草者的手册。然而，国会可以而且应该做更多的事情来提高立法质量。在本文中，我提出了几项改革措施：授权委员会主席不仅通过国会指导立法，而且促进质量更好的立法；要求更大的制图风格标准化；编写新的材料和培训，以协助立法者，特别是委员会工作人员认识到草稿有缺陷，并赞赏审慎的草稿做法的价值；并成立一个咨询委员会，将主要的起草参加者召集在一起，以提出进一步的改革方案。编写新的材料和培训，以协助立法者，特别是委员会工作人员认识到草稿有缺陷，并赞赏审慎的草稿做法的价值；并成立一个咨询委员会，将主要的起草参加者召集在一起，以提出进一步的改革方案。编写新的材料和培训，以协助立法者，特别是委员会工作人员认识到草稿有缺陷，并赞赏审慎的草稿做法的价值；并成立一个咨询委员会，将主要的起草参加者召集在一起，以提出进一步的改革方案。