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Friday, October 24, 2014

Tracking the Legislative History of Oregon State Constitutional Provisions

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!

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