Brief Description: Revising the statute law committee's publication authority.

Sponsors: By Representatives Goodman and Priest; by request of Statute Law Committee.

House Committee on Judiciary
Senate Committee on Judiciary

Background:

The Statute Law Committee (SLC) is responsible for compiling and printing a number of publications, including the session laws and the Washington State Register (Register).

The session laws consist of all the bills that were enacted into law during the legislative session and initiatives adopted by the people in the preceding year. The SLC is required to have published and bound, within 75 days after adjournment of session, as many copies of the session laws as may be necessary.

The SLC distributes free copies of the session laws to designated persons and entities. In addition, the SLC may exchange session laws for similar laws of other states. Surplus copies of the session laws may be sold by the SLC for a price that covers costs. Moneys received from the sale of the session laws are deposited into the State General Fund.

The Register is a biweekly publication distributed on the first and third Wednesday of each month. It includes a variety of information relating to the activities of state government, including notices of proposed rules, emergency and permanently adopted rules, public meetings of state agencies, notices of rules review, executive orders and emergency declarations of the Governor, court rules adopted but not yet published, summaries of Attorney General opinions, juvenile disposition standards, and the state maximum interest rate.

The Register must be made available in written form and free of charge to certain governmental officials, the State Legislature, county boards of law libraries, and to the Olympia representatives of the Associated Press and United Press International. Other persons may purchase the Register for a price fixed by the Code Reviser.

County law libraries are required to maintain complete sets of the Register for public use and inspection.

Summary:

Moneys received from the sale of surplus copies of the session laws are paid into the Statute Law Committee Publication Account, rather than the State General Fund.

The SLC may publish the Register exclusively by electronic means on the Code Reviser website if the SLC determines that public access will not be substantially diminished, and the electronic copy is considered the official copy of the Register.

If the SLC decides to publish the Register exclusively by electronic means, county law libraries may satisfy their requirement to maintain the Register for inspection by providing on-site access to the Register, and the SLC will not be required to provide written copies of the Register to those persons and entities currently entitled to them. The Code Revisor must provide a paper copy of the Register or a Register filing upon request and may charge a reasonable fee for printing and mailing the paper copy.

Changes are made to the language in the laws relating to the Register to accommodate the potential change to exclusive electronic publication of the Register. In addition, the reference to the Olympia representatives of the Associated Press and United Press International is changed to the Olympia Press Corps.

Votes on Final Passage:

House   96   1
Senate   47   0   (Senate amended)
House   95   0   (House concurred)

Effective: July 22, 2007