Many of our
readers will be familiar with the annotations to the Oregon Revised Statutes.
The note “Amended by 1969 c.179 §1” is familiar to many. It points to Chapter
179 Section 1 of the 1969 Oregon Laws and helps the reader track down the legislative
history of the statute in question.
The Oregon
Constitution has a similar notation that guides the user seeking the history of
a particular constitutional section. The current Oregon Constitution is
available on line at the Oregon legislature's
website. Each Section of the constitution ends with a note that looks
like this:
[Constitution of 1859; Amendment
proposed by H.J.R. 11, 1955, and adopted by the people Nov. 6, 1956; Amendment proposed by H.J.R.
27, 1969, and adopted by the people Nov. 3, 1970; Amendment proposed by S.J.R.
17, 2001, and adopted by the people May 21, 2002]
This note,
from Article XI Section 6, recounts the history of this section. In this case
the section was enacted in the constitution of 1859 and then amended in 1956,
1970 and 2002. The last amendment to Article XI section 6 was proposed in the
17th Senate Joint Resolution from 2001.
You can find
selected resolutions from 1999 on the Oregon Legislature's web page.
A box in the lower right corner of the page contains the published resolutions.
SJR 17 (2001) is located here.
It is
important to remember that the only resolutions recorded are ones deemed
significant by the Oregon Legislative Counsel. If you are looking for a
resolution and it is not listed on the legislature’s website you can contact
the Oregon State Archives
Reference Desk and view the resolution at the State Archives building. Feel free to contact us at the SOLL reference desk if you need help locating a document in the Archives. If
you are looking for a resolution that is older than 1999 you can check a paper
copy of the Oregon Laws from the appropriate year. The SOLL has a full
collection of Oregon Laws available to the public.
Happy
researching!