Articles Posted in State Government & Legal Resources

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Practice makes perfect?

Each legislative session we see new laws about towing. Add these to updated local towing ordinances and we could probably write book on Oregon towing laws!

We won’t though (aren’t you glad?), but can try to keep you updated, to a degree, if only to alert you to the fact that you should check both state and local laws on towing before deciding on your next course of action, that is, calling someone to complain, e.g. your newspaper, your legislators, city council members, the mayor, your lawyer, your favorite blogger, etc..

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An idea whose time has come, maybe, soon:

Law.Gov: A Proposed Registry and Repository of All Primary Legal Materials of the United States

PACER, CRS, eCourt, eFiling, caselaw, statutes, superseded laws, dockets, state, federal, international, etc., etc., etc.? One can dream.

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Link to update.

Do you want to read the official text of these ballot measures and get a head start on preparing for the January 2010 election?

1) Visit the Elections Division’s searchable database and set your search criteria to 2010 and Qualified for Ballot. You’ll be given a link to the full text of the measures.

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Did you know that … “There is created the Task Force on Effective and Cost-Efficient Service Provision …”: House Bill 2920 (HTML or PDF) (Chapter 881, (2009 Laws): Effective date August 4, 2009).

“… The task force shall:

(a) Review opportunities to provide services in the most effective and cost-efficient manner;

(b) Consider the ability of intergovernmental agreements, existing or new service districts and technology to achieve costsavings;

(c) Encourage effective fiscal planning for counties managing the phaseout of federal forest safety net payments; and

(d) Recommend to the Governor and the Legislative Assembly anappropriate level of state fiscal support to counties….” (See also: Representative Nathanson appointment to Task Force)

I’m not sure if you are fully aware just how difficult it is to cut a state’s budget, especially one’s own state’s budget. Do you really want to cut programs that have substantial matching funds the state would lose? Do you want to cut programs that bring in self-supporting fees? Do you want to cut programs that would save us all a lot money in the short, medium or long term (e.g. education?) Do you really want to cut money from programs that protect our health and safety? See what I mean?

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Non-attorney legal researchers often assume that legal indexes will use the same terms (also known as keywords, subject headings, or simply words) we use in real life. But they don’t! Welcome to my world.

(Databases also often refer to one search technique as “natural language searching.” Ha ha ha. There is little “natural” about each person’s use of the language, and there is even less that is “natural” when talking about the law. So, when you are told, “just use natural language,” I recommend you laugh darkly and do some research to find out a little about the profession’s unique nomenclature.)

When searching for criminal laws in the ORS Index, if your narrow, specific or your common sense search words don’t seem to be doing the trick, try looking under these main subject headings first, and then search using the words you selected:

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The Oregon Supreme Court case that limited mandatory measure 11 sentences and that garnered a lot of headlines and commentary in September, was:

STATE OF OREGON v. RODRIGUEZ / BUCK (SC S055720), filed September 24, 2009:

The decisions of the Court of Appeals are affirmed in part and reversed in part. The judgments of the circuit courts are affirmed.

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Just a reminder that the 2009 Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) will not be available in print or online until 2010.

But you can still read the 2009 Oregon laws enacted by the Legislature and the Governor.

(Note: Oregon “Effective Date of Legislation”: “In accordance with ORS 171.022, “Except as otherwise provided in the Act, an Act of the Legislative Assembly takes effect on January 1 of the year after passage of the Act.”)

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I’ve been grousing for a while about the online absence of the Oregon AG Public Records Manual and others have done more than grouse!

Open Up Oregon has links to PDFs for the full manual and the story behind their efforts. Hurrah!

Thank you to Professor Harbaugh (and Carl Malmud) for his (their) efforts and for bringing me up to date.

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The August/September 2009 issue of the Oregon State Bar Bulletin (OSB) had a useful list of recent legislative bills that passed this past Legislative Session. It’s a list that will come in handy until the full session summary reports roll in.

This OSB list includes bills on estate planning (e.g. small estate limits), debt collection, elder law, and many other topics.

To find the full text of all bills, visit the Oregon Legislature’s website.

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Constitution Day is Thursday, September 17, 2009. I won’t be celebrating in my usual way, but will acknowledge the day by giving out free pocket U.S. Constitutions at the Washington County Law Library, in Hillsboro.

For more information about Constitution Day:

1) Constitution Day is Every Day, at the Law Librarian Blog.

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