You need to do a little research if you want to sound as if you know what you are talking about, or, as a comedian (more than once) said:
“The lesson of that first day in kindergarten was re-taught to me throughout my life: If you think you’re pretty smart, you’re not talking to enough people.” Cameron, Bruce, “The Smartest Guy in an Empty Room,” Funny Times, September 2013, p. 3.
Onward to the All Writs Act:
The Oregon Legislature (via Legislative Counsel) has now posted all the superseded ORS volumes we scanned (1953-93).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 Here are my instructions from a September 2014 Gutbuster blog post: Superseded ORS on the Oregon Legislature’s Website: 1953-1981: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.”
If you ever wondered (and I’m sure you have – ahem), if there was a legislative session in any given year, here are some handy-dandy lists, courtesy of the Secretary of State’s Oregon Blue Book:
If you find a “law” on The Internet, doesn’t it mean it’s “The Law?” (hahaha)?
Not everything you read on the Internet is accurate. (I know! Hard to believe, but it’s true!)
Make sure the “law” you find online is accurate and know how to correct and update it if necessary.
When this shortcut works, use the ORS Archives page and look for the Statutes Affected by Measures Tables (on the right as of today).
A longer or alternate way around to the same information for each Legislative Session:
This example assumes you have a print set of the 2011 ORS and want to know which ORS sections changed in 2013.
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.)
In response to the person who asked (in a Comment to this post – and thank you for the question – it is an excellent one!) the difference between a session law and a code, specifically between the Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) and the Oregon Laws, I offer this. It is about as brief a description as can be made, but it is followed by suggestions for further reading.
(Keep in mind, that this is interesting stuff to law librarians and not necessarily to others, so you can always visit your local law library to see and hear and not just read about these government publications. We love this stuff: a previous Washington D.C. tour highlight for a bunch of us law librarians was a visit to the Office of Law Revision Counsel that prepares the U.S. Code (not to be confused with the session law, the U.S. Statutes at Large).
Oregon Laws: a chronological compilation of laws passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor. Published officially by Oregon in a set called, Oregon Laws.
Oregon Legal Research Blog