If you’ve ever come across one of these “see Preface” notes in the ORS, you might be wondering where you can find that Preface:
Example: “192.715 to 192.760 were enacted into law by the Legislative Assembly but were not added to or made a part of ORS chapter 192 or any series therin by legislative action. See Preface to Oregon Revised Statutes for further explanation.“
In the print, this is easy. You just open up Volume 1 and start reading.
Oregon’s Uniform Electronic Legal Materials Act (UELMA):
1) Oregon’s UELMA is codified at 2013 ORS 192.715 et seq.
2) Session law: Oregon UELMA: Chapter 221, (2013 Laws): Effective date May 23, 2013
Ask and ye shall find. From Legislative Counsel:
“We plan to have the 2013 ORS posted on the legislative website by the end of January.”
Reason to celebrate: The (print) 2013 Oregon Revised Statutes (ORSs) are In The Law Library – Hurrah!
The online version is likely not far behind.
(The print volumes are burnt orange 🙂
Superseded ORSs, formerly on the Oregon Legislature’s old website, along with audio recordings, minutes, and exhibits, are missing in action only temporarily while the Legislature’s website upgrade is in progress.
We have been reassured by Legislative Counsel that the superseded ORSs will be on the new website shortly. (New websites take time, lots of time to pull themselves together, even after launch.)
In the meantime:
May 7, 2013, UELMA (Uniform Electronic Legal Materials Act) update:
The Judiciary Committee is holding UELMA (HB 2944, Intro) over until Thursday, May 9th, to get some more of their questions answered. (There was a brief hearing on HB 2944 on May 6, 2013.)
UELMA Primer: Authenticating the Law
It’s not easy to find a simple online explanation of the difference between Official and Unofficial sources of law. My explanation may fill in that gap – or not, depending on your specific question. (And a blog post this long can hardly be called “simple,” but such is life — and law.)
1) In a nutshell, an official source is a source that has been authorized by an official body, such as a court or a legislature. In Oregon, for example, we have the official statutes of Oregon, published in the Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS), by the Oregon Legislature, through Legislative Counsel. (This official statutory compilation should not be confused with Oregon Laws, which is the official session law compilation.)
2) We also have in Oregon, as do many states, an unofficial statutory compilation, the Oregon Revised Statutes Annotated, which is published by Thomson-Reuters (West Group).
The OJD December 10, 2009, Media Release gives a summary of this case (other Media Releases).
Read the full case:
State of Oregon v. Roy Lee McCullough, Jr. (SC S056910) (decided December 10, 2009)
KCLL Klues posted this Positive Law and other U.S. Code Mysteries a little while ago and it reminded me that some of my own readers are new to legal research and also curious about such things. What IS positive law anyway?
No, positive law isn’t law in your favor, but that’s not a bad guess. Nor is it law that says, “yup, it’s yours, all yours, and you can do what you want as long as you don’t scare the horses,” rather than those pesky “thou shalt NOT” laws. It’s also not the opposite of negative law!
(Just as “legal” isn’t really the opposite of “illegal” though we’ve come to accept it that way. It’s all legal on this legal research blog, and it’s all lawful too, but not all legal blogs behave lawfully.)
Oregon Legal Research Blog