Articles Tagged with Legislative history

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A patron recently asked what something meant. They were pointing at a series of numbers and abbreviations at the end of a statute. It looked like this “[1957 c.448 §1; 1981 c.88 §2; 1983 c.330 §1; 1993 c.741 §110; 1993 c.796 §1; 2001 c.403 §1]” (ORS 776.015). I told them that is the history of the law.

When the legislature passes a law, it starts as a bill. That bill has a number, like HB 2001 or SB 101. That tells us if it’s a House Bill (HB) or Senate Bill (SB). Those bills that are approved by both houses and signed by the Governor become a session law. Those session laws are compiled after each legislative session. Those compilations are titled Oregon Laws.

The Oregon Revised Statutes are a compilation of all the session laws passed by the legislature that are currently in effect. To make it easier to find a law, they are organized by subject. But each statute has a list of the session laws that have impacted it, in brackets. That is the text our patron was asking about.

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How did we answer that? Legislative History

I had a woman come in asking for help doing a legislative history. She didn’t get into details with what she wanted beyond needing to know the history of one of the statutes about whistleblowers.

When doing a legislative history, the first thing to do is find which statute you want to know the history of. In this case, the woman already knew the exact statute. I got her onto one of our legal databases (there are many options out there, but at WCLL our main ones are Lexis and Westlaw). Conveniently, the statute she was looking at only had one bill to research for changes. Had there been more, she would have done the same following steps, but repeated for each bill.

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The Psilocybin Service Initiative of Oregon is expected to appear on the 2020 general election ballot.

(If you want to know more about psilocybin, read Michael Pollan’s 2018 book, “How to change your mind.” See also books about LSD microdosing (e.g. Ayelet Waldman’s 2017 “A really good day.”) Compare with Jill Bolte Taylor’s 2006 book (and her TED talk), “My Stroke of Insight,” and her description of how the world looked from her right brain (while her left brain was incapacitated due to a massive stroke.) There is also the Psilocybin Wikipedia page and the Denver, CO, psilocybin ballot measure.)

You can also read the full text of the Psilocybin Service Initiative of Oregon LC (legislative concept) at the Initiatives, Referendums and Referrals database (from the Oregon Secretary of State, Voting and Election website).

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We have been informed that that the 1995 and 1997 ORS are appearing online at the Oregon Legislature’s website. Our partners in this have been Legislative Counsel, so please thank them for this effort.

In time, pre-1953 Oregon laws, codes, and statutes and 1953 to the present ORS will appear online. (Although not yet UELMA-compliant. Only a few states are managing that miracle.)

Previous blog posts on our superseded ORS digitization project can be found with these tags, among others:

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Six hours is barely enough time to teach Legislative History 101, but you can still join in the (admittedly wonkish) fun on October 23rd, 2015:

“Oregon Legislative History: Research and Time Management Tips from the Experts”

Legislators, lawyers, law students, paralegals, librarians and other legal researchers are welcome to attend or purchase the course materials.

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Oregon v. Lang, 273 Or App 113 (2015), (Benton County Circuit Court CM1320460; A154498)

Citations below are to the online, unofficial advance sheet version of this case, and available for viewing (at least as of today) at: http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/docs/A154498.pdf

This is another case that would be quite instructive to laypeople interested in the law, assuming they read the whole case and also perhaps talk to a lawyer or judge about it, rather than relying on a brief news report – or a blog post.

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The Oregon Legislature (via Legislative Counsel) has now posted all the superseded ORS volumes we scanned (1953-93). They already have 1999-2011 ORS.

Note: It’s not very easy to find the 1953-93 archives because you have to click on some very tiny print on a different screen in order to get there. Here are my instructions from a September 2014 Gutbuster blog post: Superseded ORS on the Oregon Legislature’s Website: 1953-1981:

“…. Indirect link: Visit the ORS Archives 1999-2011 webpage and click on the text (in tiny print): “Older editions of the ORS are available here and more are being added as time and resources allow.”

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I could use this case to teach an entire course on Oregon legal research to lawyers, law students, legislators, and self-represented litigants:

City of Damascus v. Henry R. Brown, Jr. (A156920)

“ARMSTRONG, P. J.

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The Oregon Legislature now has 1953-1981 ORS on their website. Stay tuned for more superseded ORS to be added to the online collection.

Indirect link: Visit the ORS Archives 1999-2011 webpage and click on the text (in tiny print): “Older editions of the ORS are available here and more are being added as time and resources allow.”

More about the Gutbuster scanning project we have been working on with Legislative Counsel, including a picture of a Gutbuster.

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