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:
“When Paul Bunyan’s loggers roofed an Oregon bunkhouse with shakes, fog was so thick that they shingled forty feet into space before discovering they had passed the last rafter.”
—State of Oregon, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every blessing of society, depend so much upon an upright and skilful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“It is far easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the needle’s eye, hump and all, than for an erstwhile colonial administration to give sound and honest counsel of a political nature to its liberated territory.”
—Kwame Nkrumah (1900–1972)