SENATE, No. 870

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

INTRODUCED FEBRUARY 26, 1996

By Senator CARDINALE

An Act concerning the Office of Legislative Services and amending P.L.1979, c.8.

    Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

    1. Section 17 of P.L.1979, c.8 (C.52:11-70) is amended to read as follows:

    17. a. All requests for legal assistance, information or advice and all information received by the Office of Legislative Services in connection with any request for fiscal, budgetary or research service or for the drafting or redrafting of bills, resolutions or amendments thereof for introduction in the Legislature shall be regarded as confidential and no information in respect thereto shall be given to the public or to any person other than the person or persons making such request or any officer or person duly authorized to have such information, unless and until the person making such request consents thereto or the subject matter thereof shall have been made public in some manner.

    b. The Office of Legislative Services shall assist the members of the Legislature in avoiding duplicate bill introductions, as follows:

    (1) Whenever the office receives a request for a bill or resolution to be drafted or redrafted that appears to be identical or substantively similar to a prior request that it has received from a member of the same House, it shall forthwith notify both members that a subsequent request is made and suggest a joint request. The office shall identify each member to the other, but shall provide no other information in respect to either request, unless duly authorized by the member making the pertinent request. Unless a request is withdrawn or a joint request is made, the office shall draft or redraft the bill or resolution first for the prior requester.

    (2) Whenever the office receives a request for a bill or resolution to be drafted or redrafted that appears to be identical or substantively similar to a bill or resolution that was previously introduced in the same House, it shall forthwith notify the requester that an identical or substantively similar bill or resolution has been previously introduced and suggest that the request be withdrawn.

    (3) Whenever the office finds that a bill or resolution was introduced that appears to be identical or substantively similar to a bill or resolution that was previously introduced in the same House, it shall forthwith notify the member or members who introduced each bill or resolution, that identical or substantively similar bills or resolution have been introduced.

(cf: P.L.1979, c.8, s17.)

    2. This act shall take effect immediately, and shall apply to requests received and bills introduced in each full biennial session occurring after that date.

STATEMENT

    This bill amends the governing statutes of the Office of Legislative Services to require the office to assist the members of the Legislature in avoiding the introduction of duplicate bills. The bill sets forth specific procedures for the OLS to follow whenever it receives duplicate drafting requests from members of the same House, receives a drafting request for a bill already introduced in the House, or finds that a duplicate bill is introduced. The procedures require the OLS to provide information to the involved legislative requesters or sponsors.

    Currently, the OLS is not charged statutorily with the responsibility of assisting legislators in this regard. The office has adopted a policy of responding to requests on a "first come--first served" basis. But the confidentiality restrictions placed on the office by law do not permit the OLS to divulge names of legislative requesters to each other.

    The purpose of this bill is not to provide the OLS with authority to prevent duplicate bills from being introduced, or to refuse to respond to a legislator's request. This would be inappropriate for a service agency of the Legislature. Rather, the bill directs the OLS to provide legislators with names so that the legislators may communicate with each other and provide direction to OLS with respect to bill introductions.

Requires OLS to assist Legislature in avoiding duplicate bill introductions.