Legislators Wimp Out on Open Document Format Bills

First, it was disappointing to hear legislators complaining that taking responsibility for the long-term availability of public documents should not be their concern. In Minnesota, the retreating sponsor of the open format bill was quoted as saying, "I wouldn't know an open document format if it bit me on the butt. We're public policy experts. [Deciding technical standards] is not our job."   Oh? And if not a legislature's job, whose is it? State and federal legislators annually rule on a bewildering array of topics, from funding super conducting super colliders, to the rights of people to die, to stem cell legislation, to complex tax issues, to international affairs, to defense expenditures. Somehow they manage. One reason they do is because they are supported by extremely large staffs of aids and are free to call upon experts of all types. They seem to think that they are capable of mastering all of these topics, or at least that they can vote up or down on this wide range of issues based upon what they are told – which is, of course perhaps what happened here as well.

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