Book: The legislative branch of state government

Thomas Little and David Ogle are the authors of a new ABC-CLIO book, The Legislative Branch of State Government : people, process and politics. This work is third in a series of About State Government titles. The book is described to have general information and comparative details on how that branch operates in each state, and a concluding chapter that looks at characteristics that make each of the 50 state legislative bodies fascinating and unique. The other titles in the series cover the executive branch and the judicial branch of state governments.

Bill volume for 2004

StateNet has posted a Bill Volume map on its web site. The map shows how much legislation was handled by each state legislature in 2004. Ohio falls in the range of handling 2001-3000 legislative documents according to this map from StateNet. Source of map: http://www.statenet.com/resources/

That count is correct if resolutions and concurrent resolutions are part of the final tally. The totals from the Appendices and General Index of the Journals ... for the 125th Ohio General Assembly (2003-2004) are:

Senate bills introduced: 283

House bills introduced: 591

Bills passed by Senate: 83

Bills passed by House: 190

Senate resolutions adopted: 1,980

House resolutions adopted: 304

Total Senate bills becoming law: 37

Total House bills becoming law: 91

Legislative blog and podcasts

The Thicket at State Legislatures is a new blog from the National Conference of State Legislatures. It's a blog "by and for legislative junkies." They're posting about legislative culture, staff, and members, elections, ethics, term limits, and the media. NCSL is also sponsoring the The Conference Report which posts periodic podcasts on "trends from America's state legislatures." Some of the podcast topics: gasoline prices, the avian flu, and immigration.

More Ohio forms

LexisNexis has also released a new subscription database of Anderson's Ohio Forms, containing 10,000 forms drawn from 20 major titles published by Anderson. The forms can be filled-in online, printed and saved. Other features allow for customizing the forms using common word-processing copy and paste steps. More functions are demonstrated in the online tour. For a complete list of the forms included in the database, go here. This collection remains available as a CD-ROM product.

Anderson's Ohio Forms added to Lexis

LexisNexis Product Postings for May 2006 notes that Anderson's Ohio Forms is a new legal source added to the Ohio file. The trail to find this source is Legal tab: Ohio: Treatises & Analytical Materials: Forms. Anderson's Ohio Forms file on Lexis contains more than 5,000 forms culled from the many Anderson publications now owned by the LexisNexis company. New sources added to LexisNexis can be found here.

Stories of statehood

The Uniting States, from Greenwood Press, collects the stories of statehood for each of the fifty states. Ohio's essay is authored by Michael Mangus and Susan Mangus. Sample pages from The Uniting States are here.

This narrative essay is a good companion piece to the primary sources listed in the new Prestatehood Legal Materials research guide. Details on the making of the Maxwell Code are explored here. The Maxwell Code was the first collection of laws for the Northwest Territory.

Encyclopedia of Appalachia

The Encyclopedia of Appalachia has been published by the University of Tennessee Press. It's been a project of the Center for Appalachian Studies and Services at the East Tennessee State University. The encyclopedia is a comprehensive reference with over 2,000 entries. One of the editors was interviewed on NPR about the book on May 7, 2006. Listen to the interview or read excerpts of the encyclopedia on NPR's All Things Considered, "Celebrating the History of Appalachia."

New Enactments

The Ohio Judicial Conference added New Enactments to their web page. It's a convenient way to track the latest Ohio bills that have become law. The compilations start with the 125th General Assembly. The New Enactments page separately tracks the very latest additions. For the full list, each entry shows the effective date, links to the bill, and provides a brief summary of the new law. Compare to the General Assembly's collection of recently enacted law and the lists created by the Ohio Secretary of State.