The Office of the Oregon Legislative Counsel is a government agency in the U.S. state of Oregon. The office was established in 1953, primarily to offer legal services to the members and committees of the Oregon Legislative Assembly.
The office drafts legislation, conducts legal research, writes opinions, compiles and publishes session laws and the Oregon Revised Statutes, and reviews administrative rules submitted by agencies of the executive branch of the government of Oregon. It also assists the Oregon Law Commission in revising, reforming, and improving the law.
The Legislative Counsel Committee, composed of members of both the Oregon State Senate and the Oregon House of Representatives, oversees the office. Dexter Johnson is the current Legislative Counsel, serving as the chief executive of the office.
Famous quotes containing the words oregon, legislative and/or counsel:
“The Oregon [matter] and the annexation of Texas are now all- important to the security and future peace and prosperity of our union, and I hope there are a sufficient number of pure American democrats to carry into effect the annexation of Texas and [extension of] our laws over Oregon. No temporizing policy or all is lost.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“However much we may differ in the choice of the measures which should guide the administration of the government, there can be but little doubt in the minds of those who are really friendly to the republican features of our system that one of its most important securities consists in the separation of the legislative and executive powers at the same time that each is acknowledged to be supreme, in the will of the people constitutionally expressed.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“Critics generally come to be critics not by reason of their fitness for this, but of their unfitness for anything else. Books should be tried by a judge and jury as though they were a crime, and counsel should be heard on both sides.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)