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According to the US White House website, “anyone can write” a bill to be introduced to Congress. In theory, bills should represent the best interests of the people within a Western-style democracy. Legislators who vote on these bills should do so in the interests of the very public who voted them into office in the first place.

In reality, many bills are either written by corporate-financier funded interests themselves or by legislators and their teams who these interests are lobbying. These are bills which Congress admittedly doesn’t understand, and instead depends on specialists working for these same interests to explain to them.

What emerges is policy-driven by unelected interests, simply laundered through elected representatives, creating the illusion of a public mandate. Because politicians can be voted in and out of office, when the public is unsatisfied with US policy, the empty hope of new elections and the prospect of “change” prevents them from ever addressing the underlying factors that prevent that change from ever actually occurring.

The first step in the legislative process is the introduction of a bill to Congress. Anyone can write it, but only members of Congress can introduce legislation.