Wis. Stat. § 13.92 — WI Code / Chapter 13 / Section 13.92
Legislative reference bureau.
Status: in_force

There is created a bureau to be known as the “Legislative Reference Bureau,” headed by the chief of legislative reference bureau. The legislative reference bureau shall be strictly nonpartisan and shall at all times observe the confidential nature of the reference or drafting requests received by it.

(1) Duties of the bureau.

(a) Reference section. The legislative reference bureau shall perform reference services for all members of the legislature equally and impartially and to the limits of its facilities and staff. Such reference services shall be available also to public officials, students of government and citizens generally. In the performance of its reference services, the bureau shall:

1. Collect, index and make available in the most suitable form to legislators, other public officials, students of government and citizens generally, information relative to governmental subjects which will aid the legislature, other public officials and the citizens generally, to perform their duties in the most efficient and economical manner.

2. Maintain an adequate collection of public documents of Wisconsin and other states and carry out loan arrangements with libraries.

3. Maintain the drafting records of legislation introduced in prior sessions of the legislature and utilize such records to provide information on questions of legislative intent. Such records shall be retained in the offices of the bureau at all times.

4. Utilize the materials assembled in its collection and other suitable materials to prepare studies and reports providing pertinent information regarding subjects which are or may become items of concern to the legislature, other public officials or the public generally, and where warranted publish such reports and studies in the most expeditious manner.

5. Prepare copy for the biennial Wisconsin Blue Book.

6. Beginning with the date of the decennial federal census of population and ending on December 1 of the 2nd year commencing after such census, prepare and publish such street and ward maps of the municipalities in this state as are required to show the boundary lines of congressional and legislative districts based on that census. Following the final approval of the redistricting plans, the bureau shall transfer the maps used to show the district boundaries contained in such plans to the department of administration under s. 16.96 (3) (b) .

(b) Drafting section. The legislative reference bureau shall provide drafting services equally and impartially and to the limits of its facilities and staff. In the performance of its drafting services, the bureau shall:

1. Prepare in the proper form all legislation to be introduced in the legislature. Only the following persons may use the drafting services of the bureau for this purpose:

a. Any member or member-elect of the legislature and, on behalf of each committee thereof, the chairperson.

b. Any agency, as defined in s. 16.70 (1e) , created under ch. 13 , 14 , 15 , or 758 .

c. The chief clerk of either house of the legislature for requests pertaining to the operation of the legislature.

d. A party caucus of either house of the legislature.

2. Prepare in plain language an analysis of each original measure, to be printed with the measure when it is introduced. On the printed measure, the analysis shall be displayed single-spaced between the title and the enacting clause.

3. As a service to the senate and assembly, and as directed by the chief clerks thereof, enroll all measures passed by the legislature.

a. Promptly after the passage of any bill, any joint resolution amending the constitution, or any other resolution determined by the chief clerks to require enrollment and, in the case of a bill, before it is presented to the governor for approval, the chief clerk of the house in which the measure originated shall deliver the jacket to the bureau, which shall enroll the proposal and return the jacket and the required number of copies to the chief clerk.

b. Of the copies delivered to the chief clerk, one copy shall be used as the official enrolled measure to be authenticated as provided by the rules and, in the case of an enrolled bill, be submitted to the governor for the governor’s approval. The remaining copies shall be distributed as provided by the rules and as determined by the chief clerks.

c. Each enrolled proposal, or printed copy thereof, shall carry a heading “State of Wisconsin” as do bills and joint resolutions.

d. After passage of any bill that, if enacted, would create congressional districts under ch. 3 , in enrolling the bill for presentation to the governor for approval, the legislative reference bureau shall attach to the bill an appendix containing the population statistics for the congressional districts created under the bill; a statewide map of the congressional districts created under the bill; a map of the congressional districts created under the bill that are in Milwaukee County; and, for any city, village, or town that, under the bill, is divided among 2 or more congressional districts, except a city or village located in more than one county if the district line follows the county line, a detail map illustrating the division of the city, village, or town among the congressional districts.

e. After passage of any bill that, if enacted, would create legislative districts under ch. 4 , in enrolling the bill for presentation to the governor for approval, the legislative reference bureau shall attach to the bill an appendix containing the population statistics for the legislative districts created under the bill; a statewide map of each type of legislative district created under the bill; a map of the legislative districts created under the bill that are in Milwaukee County; and, for any city, village, or town that, under the bill, is divided among 2 or more legislative districts, except a city or village located in more than one county if the district line follows the county line, a detail map illustrating the division of the city, village, or town among the legislative districts.

4. Publish each act on its date of publication as prescribed under s. 35.095 (1) (b) . The bureau shall enter the act number, date of enactment, and date of publication of each act on the copy and deliver it to the contract printer for reproduction of printed copies. The publication shall identify material deleted from existing law by stricken type, and material inserted into existing law by underscored type. In any act published “vetoed in part”, the material subject to the veto shall be displayed in full but shall be identified by distinguishing marks. The bureau shall make printed copies available as soon as possible following publication of the act. The number of copies printed, and the quality of paper used, shall be as provided in the joint rules and as further determined by the joint committee on legislative organization.

5. Prepare a biennial list of numerical cross-references in the statutes to other parts of the statutes.

6. Publish the “Laws of Wisconsin” under s. 35.15 .

(bm) Revision of statutes. The legislative reference bureau shall prepare the Wisconsin statutes for publication under s. 35.18 (1) , and for this purpose it:

1. Shall formulate and prepare a definite plan for the order, classification, arrangement, and publication of the statutes, and prepare and at each session of the legislature present bills to the law revision committee of the joint legislative council containing such consolidation, revision, and other matter relating to the statutes as time permits.

2. May renumber any chapter or section of the statutes for the purpose of revision, and shall change reference numbers to agree with any renumbered chapter or section. Where the term “preceding section” or similar expressions are used in the statutes the bureau may change the same by inserting the proper section or chapter reference.

3. May, where the application or effect of a statute, by its terms, depends on the time when the act creating the statute took effect, substitute the actual effective date for the various forms of expression which mean that date, such as “when this act (or chapter, or section) takes effect”, or “after (or before) the effective date of this act (or chapter, or section)”, in publishing the Wisconsin statutes under s. 35.18 (1) .

4. May delete useless words such as “of the statutes”, “of this section”, “hereof”, “immediately above”, “inclusive” and the like, where such words appear immediately after a chapter, section or subsection reference.

5. May delete useless words in statutory references such as “any of the provisions of” or “any of the requirements of” and the like when they appear immediately before a reference to a chapter, section, subsection or paragraph of the statutes.

6. May delete the word “hereby” wherever used in connection with the verbs “consents”, “grants”, “gives” or “declares” or other verbs.

7. May substitute the word “deems” for the words “may deem”.

8. May substitute the word “may” for the phrase “is hereby authorized to” or similar phrases.

9. May substitute “this state” for the phrase “the state of Wisconsin”.

10. May change an incorrect form of a pronoun to the correct form.

11. May insert the USC citations for federal acts.

12. May delete surplus words and modernize language in penalty provisions to correspond to current drafting style. No such change shall have the effect of increasing or decreasing any penalty.

13. Shall, whenever any statute is affected by any act of the legislature, and may, at the bureau’s discretion, ensure that the statutory language does not discriminate on the basis of sex by making the following corrections, which shall have no substantive effect:

a. Delete any masculine or feminine pronoun or adjective, except where the statute clearly applies to one sex only, and replace it, if necessary, with terminology which does not discriminate on the basis of sex.

b. Replace words of male or female gender, such as man, wife and widow, with terms such as person, spouse and surviving spouse, except where the statute clearly applies to one sex only.

c. Make other corrections to remove from the statutes or to replace terminology which discriminates on the basis of sex.

14. Shall prepare for introduction in the legislature legislation substituting English terms for Latin terms in the statutes.

15. Shall identify for deletion by the legislature provisions that have no legal effect.

16. Shall include an index of statutes of limitation and statutes establishing procedures for assertion of claims against governmental units or their employees in ch. 893 of each biennial edition of the Wisconsin statutes.

(c) Drafting records; when confidential. While the legislature remains in session the drafting section shall maintain the files for all drafting requests received during such session, but after final adjournment the drafting records to legislation introduced shall be turned over to the reference section under par. (a) 3. Records of drafting requests which did not result in legislation introduced shall remain confidential at all times and may be maintained by the drafting section in such form as will facilitate its operations.

(e) Legislative documents. Payments for the following costs shall be administered by the legislative reference bureau:

1. Providing printing and duplicating services to the legislature and its service agencies.

2. Printing of legislative proposals or amendments and, when so ordered by either house, engrossed or enrolled proposals, under s. 35.05 .

3. Publication of the Laws of Wisconsin under s. 35.15 and acts under s. 35.095 .

4. Printing of the Wisconsin Blue Book under s. 35.24 .

5. Microfilming, optical imaging or electronic formatting of reference materials and legislative drafting records under par. (a) 1. and 3.

6. Acquisition of materials and information for legislative service agency libraries and legislative document production.

(f) Archives.

1. The legislative reference bureau shall permanently maintain each act published under s. 35.095 (3) (a) on the Internet in an electronic file format that the legislative reference bureau determines to be appropriate to allow for the continued usability of the previously published acts and may change the electronic file format over time to assure continued usability.

2. The legislative reference bureau shall maintain a permanent database of the statutes published under s. 35.18 (1) (b) in an electronic file format that the legislative reference bureau determines to be appropriate to allow for the continued usability of the previously published statutes and may change the electronic file format over time to assure continued usability.

3. The legislative reference bureau shall permanently maintain each Wisconsin administrative register published under s. 35.93 (2) on the Internet in an electronic file format that the legislative reference bureau determines to be appropriate to allow for the continued usability of the previously published registers and may change the electronic file format over time to assure continued usability.

4.

a. The legislative reference bureau shall permanently maintain each chapter of the Wisconsin administrative code published under s. 35.93 (3) on the Internet in an electronic file format that the legislative reference bureau determines to be appropriate to allow for the continued usability of the previously published chapters and may change the electronic file format over time to assure continued usability.

b. The legislative reference bureau shall print one or more copies of each administrative code chapter published under s. 35.93 (3) and preserve the printed copies as a permanent archive. The legislative reference bureau may print and distribute additional copies to other agencies or persons as it considers to be appropriate for archival purposes.