The Vermont Statutes Online

Title 2: Legislature

Chapter 013: Office of Legislative Counsel

• Subchapter 003: LEGISLATIVE DRAFTING DIVISION

• §§ 371-374. Repealed. 1971, No. 204 (Adj. Sess.), § 7, eff. March 31, 1972; No. 256 (Adj. Sess.), § 1, eff. March 31, 1972.

• Subchapter 001: OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL

• § 401. Creation and purpose

  The Office of Legislative Counsel is created as a permanent agency to serve the General Assembly with nonpartisan legislative drafting, research, and other professional legal and editorial services. (Added 1971, No. 204 (Adj. Sess.), § 1, eff. March 31, 1972; amended 2019, No. 144 (Adj. Sess.), § 2.)

• § 402. Director and Chief Counsel; employees

  (a) The Joint Legislative Management Committee shall employ an individual to be the Director and Chief Counsel of the Office of Legislative Counsel. The Committee may conduct the hiring process itself or it may delegate this duty to a special hiring committee comprising an equal number of members from the House and Senate, not all of whom shall be from the same political party; however, the Joint Legislative Management Committee shall make the final hiring decision.

  (b)(1) The Director and Chief Counsel shall employ legal, editorial, and other professional staff as needed to carry out the duties of the Office of Legislative Counsel, except that requests for new, permanent positions shall be subject to the approval of the Joint Legislative Management Committee.

  (2) All individuals employed by the Office of Legislative Counsel shall be subject to the personnel policies adopted by the Joint Legislative Management Committee.

  (3) The provisions of 3 V.S.A. chapter 13 (classification of State personnel) shall not apply to employees of the Office of Legislative Counsel. (Added 1971, No. 204 (Adj. Sess.), § 2, eff. Jan. 1, 1973; amended 2019, No. 144 (Adj. Sess.), § 2.)

• § 403. Functions; confidentiality

  (a) The Office of Legislative Counsel shall provide legal services to the General Assembly and its staff, including:

  (1) drafting bills, resolutions, amendments, and other legal documents;

  (2) providing legal research and analysis in relation to current or anticipated legislative matters;

  (3) providing policy analysis of current or anticipated legislative matters;

  (4) maintaining a reference library;

  (5) maintaining confidential documents and other confidential materials provided to or generated by the Office in the course of business;

  (6) providing contracting and other legal services to the Joint Legislative Management Committee and other legislative offices; and

  (7) furnishing such other information and legal assistance with respect to legislative matters as may be required by a member, member-elect, committee or similar entity of the General Assembly, a chamber of the General Assembly, or the General Assembly as a whole, in the performance of its duties.

  (b)(1)(A) All requests for legal assistance, information, and advice from the Office of Legislative Counsel; all information received in connection with research or drafting; and all confidential materials provided to or generated by the Office shall remain confidential unless the party requesting or providing the information or material designates that it is not confidential.

  (B) Any draft of a report or other work in progress generated by or submitted to the Office of Legislative Counsel shall remain confidential until it has been finalized.

  (2) Recordings and minutes of committee meetings, bills and amendments that have been approved for printing or introduction, and material appearing in the journals or calendars of either house are official documents and materials and shall not be confidential under this subsection. (Added 1971, No. 204 (Adj. Sess.), § 3, eff. March 31, 1972; amended 1983, No. 88, § 13, eff. July 3, 1983; 2019, No. 144 (Adj. Sess.), § 2; 2023, No. 113 (Adj. Sess.), § E.125.1, eff. May 23, 2024.)

• § 404. Budget

  The Director and Chief Counsel shall propose a budget for the Office of Legislative Counsel to the Joint Legislative Management Committee. (Added 1971, No. 204 (Adj. Sess.), § 4, eff. March 31, 1972; amended 1973, No. 60, § 1, eff. May 13, 1973; 1981, No. 178 (Adj. Sess.), § 1; 2013, No. 142 (Adj. Sess.), § 2; 2015, No. 131 (Adj. Sess.), § 18; 2019, No. 144 (Adj. Sess.), § 2.)

• § 405. Intergovernmental cooperation

  For the purposes of carrying out its duties, the Office of Legislative Counsel shall have access to and the right to copy any public record of all executive, administrative, and judicial departments of the State, except income and franchise tax returns and other documents classified as confidential by law. (Added 1971, No. 204 (Adj. Sess.), § 5, eff. March 31, 1972; amended 2019, No. 144 (Adj. Sess.), § 2.)

• § 406. Redesignated. 2019, No. 144 (Adj. Sess.), § 11(b).

• Subchapter 002: STATUTORY REVISION

• § 421. Office of Legislative Counsel; statutory publication and revision duties

  (a) The Office of Legislative Counsel shall continuously maintain and update a formal topical revision of existing permanent statutory law to be known as the Vermont Statutes Annotated. The topical revision shall be arranged in a systematic and annotated form that is consolidated into the smallest practical number of volumes and indexes.

  (b) The Office of Legislative Counsel, on behalf of the State of Vermont, shall hold the copyright to the Vermont Statutes Annotated. (Added 2001, No. 30, § 1; amended 2019, No. 144 (Adj. Sess.), § 2.)

• § 422. Contract for preparation of Vermont Statutes Annotated

  (a) The Office of Legislative Counsel shall contract with a competent legal publisher to revise and publish the Vermont Statutes Annotated.

  (b) The contract for publishing the Vermont Statutes Annotated shall provide for the annual editing and publishing of cumulative pocket part supplements after each biennial and adjourned legislative session for the duration of the contract. The cumulative pocket part supplements shall include all codified laws enacted during the concluded biennial or adjourned session of the General Assembly, and during any special session that has occurred since the last annual publication. Each edition of the cumulative pocket part supplements to the Vermont Statutes Annotated shall include all annotations of constructions of the Vermont Supreme Court and all federal courts of the United States, available at the closing date of each edition of the pocket parts.

  (c) The contracted publisher shall, as provided in the contract, publish replacement volumes of existing titles, or separate volumes of new titles, of the Vermont Statutes Annotated. (Added 2001, No. 30, § 1; amended 2019, No. 144 (Adj. Sess.), § 2.)

• § 423. Acceptance as evidence of law

  (a) The Office of Legislative Counsel shall require the contracted publisher to deliver the cumulative pocket parts and separate supplements to the Vermont Statutes Annotated prior to the convening of the next session of the General Assembly, which shall include a certificate of authenticity that the Office of Legislative Counsel shall issue. The certificate shall entitle the statutes contained in the cumulative pocket parts and separate supplements to admission in all the courts of Vermont as prima facie evidence of the law.

  (b) The Office of Legislative Counsel shall require the contracted publisher to deliver new and replacement volumes of the Vermont Statutes Annotated with a certificate of authenticity that the Office of Legislative Counsel shall issue. The certificate shall entitle the statutes contained in the new and replacement volumes to admission in all the courts of Vermont as prima facie evidence of the law.

  (c) A certificate of authority issued by the Statutory Revision Commission pursuant to the authority of the former 1 V.S.A. § 4 shall continue to entitle a cumulative pocket part and separate supplement, or a new and replacement volume, for which it was issued to admission in all the courts of Vermont as prima facie evidence of the law.

  (d) The Vermont Statutes Annotated may be cited as “V.S.A.” (Added 2001, No. 30, § 1; amended 2019, No. 144 (Adj. Sess.), § 2.)

• § 424. Office of Legislative Counsel; revision authority

  In preparing an individual act for codification in the Vermont Statutes Annotated or publication in the Acts and Resolves, the Office of Legislative Counsel may not alter the sense, meaning, or effect of any act of the General Assembly, but it may:

  (1) renumber and rearrange sections or parts of sections;

  (2) transfer sections or divide sections so as to give separate section numbers to distinct subject matters, but without changing the meaning;

  (3) insert or change the wording of headnotes;

  (4) change reference numbers to agree with renumbered chapters or sections;

  (5) substitute the proper section or chapter number for the terms “this act,” “the preceding section,” and similar terms;

  (6) strike out figures where they are merely a repetition of written words and vice versa;

  (7) change capitalization, effect gender neutrality, and make other grammatical corrections for the purpose of conformity with the style of the Vermont Statutes Annotated;

  (8) correct manifest typographical and grammatical errors;

  (9) make any changes in any of the forms provided as guides that may be necessitated by changes in the substantive law;

  (10) correct the names of agencies, departments, and similar units of State government; and

  (11) make any other purely formal or clerical changes in keeping with the purposes of revision. (Added 2001, No. 30, § 1; amended 2013, No. 5, § 2, eff. April 23, 2013; 2019, No. 144 (Adj. Sess.), § 2.)

• § 425. Statutory databases

  The Office of Legislative Counsel, in collaboration with the Office of Legislative Information Technology, shall maintain computerized databases of the Vermont Statutes Annotated, which shall be posted on the General Assembly’s website. The databases shall include the enactment history of a codified statutory section, but shall not maintain the revisor’s notes, the judicial annotations added by the publisher, or the Acts and Resolves. (Added 2001, No. 30, § 1; amended 2013, No. 5, § 3, eff. April 23, 2013; 2019, No. 144 (Adj. Sess.), § 2.)

• § 426. Annual statutory revision legislation

  Annually, on or before February 1, the Office of Legislative Counsel may prepare and submit to the General Assembly a bill that proposes recommendations of any additions, repeals, or amendments to the existing statutes. (Added 2001, No. 30, § 1; amended 2019, No. 144 (Adj. Sess.), § 2.)