Dec 16
Once again the Washington State legislature provides access to new bills being proposed for the next session in 2009. You can find a list of pre-filed bills here and you can sign up to track certain bills once the session begins. The new session will be challenging as legislators grapple with a nearly 6 billion dollar statewide deficit for the next two year budget cycle. With this reality, keeping up to date on the latest developments can mean knowing where the cuts may fall.You may also want to follow the legislature through the Olympian coverage here. If you have further questions on utilizing the legislature’s website, contact the library at 206-296-0940.
Dec 11
In the flurry of the last few days of consideration of the King County budget, numerous proposals were heard to change or add fees for services provided by various County agencies. You can go the King County Council’s Legislative database and search for the proposals passed by the Council. Click on the Advanced search link under the Search box. In the Matter Type box, select ordinances, and in the Final Action Date box, type in 11/17/2008. Click on the Search button and you will retrieve a list of 15 ordinances passed on the 17th. If you click the ordinance title, you will see the legislative history of the ordinance, plus links to other documents such as fiscal notes or staff reports. Coverage of Council’s actions begins in 2001.
Nov 10
With technology allowing for easier access to electronic opinions of the courts, some have had concerns as to the extent to which personally identifiable information is included in these opinions. Some of these fears center around the social security numbers of participants in legal cases and purchased by third parties. Recently, the Government Accountability Office presented a report on this topic through its website.
Here is an excerpt from the report:
“Various public records in the United States contain Social Security numbers (SSN) and other personal identifying information that could be used to commit fraud and identity theft. For the purposes of this report, public records are generally defined as government agency-held records made available to the public in their entirety for inspection, such as property and court records.
Although public records were traditionally accessed locally in county courthouses and government records centers, public record keepers in some states and localities have more recently been maintaining electronic images of their records. In electronic format, records can be made available through the Internet or easily transferred to other parties in bulk quantities.”
To read the rest of the report check it out here: Social Security Numbers Are Widely Available in Bulk and Online Records, but Changes to Enhance Security Are Occurring. This information comes from a fellow county law librarian Joe Hodnicki’s blog called “Law Librarian’s Blog.”
Nov 03
The Washington Office of Secretary of State’s Digital Archives, in a partnership with Microsoft Research, is making available over 30,000 cassette tapes of committee hearings of the State House of Representatives for 1973-2001. This partnership allows for an innovative way to search through the audio recordings of these hearings. Approximately 6,000 hours of hearings are currently searchable. Over the next two years, the House will add approximately 10,000 more hours. The search engine allows you to search testimony given during a hearing. You can narrow your search by selecting specific committees and by selecting a date range. To access these tapes, go to Washington State Digital Archives detalied search screen. In the drop down box titled Record Series, select Audio Recordings. A search on the word audit brings up about 40 entries from various committees.
This tool can be an important adjunct to your state legislative history research.
Aug 29
The Seattle Times is reporting today that a Lane County, Oregon presiding judge sent out the sheriff to the streets to round up jurors for three pending cases. The court had an unusually large number of criminal trials, along with an unusually high number of no-shows for jury duty forcing the extraordinary action. Washington law provides for the selection of additional jurors, but it isn’t as broad as the Oregon statute.
Aug 22
On July 28th the Seattle City Council passed a new ordinance that will require a “green fee” for disposable shopping bags used by convenience stores, drug stores and grocery stores in Seattle. The stores will charge 20 cents for each bag. The ordinance goes into effect on January 1, 2009. Mayor Nickles put out a press release praising its passage. Here is a brief summary of the ordinance, along with a link to the complete text, if you would like to know more.
Ord. 122752
C.B. 116251
AN ORDINANCE relating to the City of Seattle’s solid waste system, establishing an advanced recovery fee (a green fee) for disposable shopping bags, providing a deduction for the green fee from the City’s business license tax, creating two new positions, and amending Seattle Municipal Code Chapters 21.36, 21.40, and 5.45.
The Mayor’s Office also has a page describing the initial push to pass this bring your own bag legislation.
If you want to search for information on new legislation, just use our library local links to the City of Seattle, or directly to the Seattle City Clerk’s Office. And remember that we have links to the Seattle Municipal Code, if you need to find out more about the current laws in our city.
Jul 03
The Washington State legislature recently made a few interesting changes in the monetary limits for court cases.
Chapter 227, Laws of 2008, 60th Legislature
TRIAL COURTS–OPERATION
EFFECTIVE DATE: 07/01/08
Sec. 2. RCW 12.40.010 and 2001 c 154 s 1 are each amended to read as follows:
In every district court there shall be created and organized by the court a department to be known as the “small claims department of the district court.” The small claims department shall have jurisdiction, but not exclusive, in cases for the recovery of money only if the amount claimed does not exceed ((four)) five thousand dollars.
This same law changed the limit for district court to $75,000 from $50,000 for civil cases.
This change hopes to affect the number of cases brought at each level of court.