# Model Legislation Draft statutory text prepared by an organization outside a legislature and offered to members for introduction. Nothing on the face of a bill records that its words were written elsewhere, and no state requires a sponsor to say so. A 2019 investigation by USA TODAY, the Arizona Republic and the Center for Public Integrity compared state bills from 2010 to 2018 against a library of more than 2,100 model acts it had to assemble itself, and found legislators had introduced bills based on them at least 10,000 times. Because most organizations do not publish their drafts, that figure is a floor. The sources are not alike. The [[Uniform Law Commission]] is funded by state appropriations, requires its commissioners to be attorneys, debates each draft across at least two annual meetings, and publishes what it approves. Advocacy shops such as [[ALEC]] operate differently: its task forces produce the drafts, private-sector members hold effective veto power over them, and meetings are closed. ## See also - [[How a State Legislature Makes Law]] - [[ALEC]] - [[State Policy Network]]