Process of drafting bills just getting under way

HELENA - Susan Fox is used to it: for a few months every two years, her in-box fills with dozens of bill draft assignments. Some can be processed fairly quickly, but others require extensive research. Most will go through a complex process of checks, reviews, edits and amendments before they get a final vote from the Legislature.

It's a remarkable process, considering that this year Fox and her colleagues in the Legislative Services Division have 2,093 bill draft requests. As of Tuesday, they could expect as many as 300 more because each legislator is limited to just two new bill introductions after the session opened.

By the end of the 2003 session, there were an unprecedented 2,207 bill draft requests that required 8.1 million typewritten pages, a substantial increase over the 5.7 million pages that were produced in the previous session. But those numbers do not reflect the entirety of the workload carried by a staff that includes 20 bill drafters who are either attorneys or researchers, along with editors, text processors and supervisors. As the session progresses, there will be hundreds of formal bill amendments that require nearly as much attention as the original draft requests.

As this session got under way, Fox was immersed in research for dozens of requests aimed at regulation of the illegal drug methamphetamine.

"I start out just trying to get some general background information," said Fox, a researcher who has been drafting bills since 1992. "I'll look on the Internet to see what types of regulations have been passed by other states. For bill drafting, we're not supposed to be creative writers, so if you can steal language from other states, that can be good. Plagiarism can be good when you are drafting bills."

But, she adds, drafters must be careful to research the legal baggage that might be tied to legislation from other states.

Bill draft requests often come in the form of a brief description handwritten on a blue submission sheet. There are often "contacts" - usually lobbyists or constituents - listed for drafters to consult for additional information. Legislators often know little about the precise subject matter; they know the gist of the bill and they leave the details to the bill drafter.

"They can be very vague," Fox said. "But some legislators are really precise and they know exactly what they want."

"Sometimes it gets really tricky finding words that are palatable to both sides or all the interests" that can be involved with a bill, Fox said.

But the process for developing bills is meticulous and precise, with a thick guide book outlining preferential language and formats for bills.

"It's an elaborate process with a number of checks and balances to make sure that the final product is what it needs to be," said Lois Menzies, executive director of legislative services.

After a bill is drafted, it is reviewed by a legal specialist and an editor and then it is returned to the drafter for revisions. Then it goes to a proofreader and text processor prior to another review by the original drafter. It is then sent to Menzies and finally to the requesting legislator for review. Along the way, the legislative services staff goes through a lengthy "checklist" to determine if a bill conflicts with existing Montana Code and the state Constitution, and it is referred for additional information such as fiscal notes, which outline projected costs and revenue a bill could produce.

In fact, the 8 million pages of bill text produced by the Legislative Services Division during the 2003 session was just a fraction of the total amount of text produced during the drafting process. There are often reams of supporting information for bills, including considerable correspondence between lawmakers and Legislative Services.

Even in the interim between legislative sessions, the Legislative Services staff is assigned lengthy research work, usually at the direction of legislative committees. But in the weeks prior to a session, the work load starts climbing toward a crescendo.

"We start ramping up shortly after the election," Menzies said. Legislators can submit an unlimited number of bill draft requests prior to Dec. 5, and after that they are allowed seven requests. After Jan. 3, they are allowed three.

At the end of the 2003 session, the Legislative Services staff had collectively accumulated more than four years of compensatory time due to overtime put in during the session. Menzies said the employees are not paid overtime, but they are given "comp" time away from work.

While the number of bill draft requests has increased so far this decade, the number of bills actually introduced for consideration by the Legislature has been relatively consistent. The last time around, 62 percent of bills drafted were introduced, while in 2001 it was 72 percent and in 1999, it was 66 percent.

It's unclear exactly why the number of bill draft requests has increased in the last few years, but several knowledgeable sources suspect that legislative term limits has something to do with it.

"They hit the ground running the first year, knowing that they may not have much time after that," Menzies said.

Others speculate that term limits have forced lawmakers to rely more on lobbyists for information that leads to legislation.

"Years ago, legislators wrote their own bills," said Senate Minority Leader Bob Keenan, R-Bigfork. "But with term limits, there are so many bills that lobbyists are writing."

But even bills that have fairly specific direction must still go through Legislative Services, Menzies said.

"I can't say enough about the bill drafters, the editors, the text processors," Menzies said. "They do a heroic job each session."

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com