1. Office of the Legislative Counsel House of Representatives www.house.gov/legcoun

2. Who we are Created by statute (Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970; 2 U.S.C. 281 et seq.) Purpose: to advise and assist the House in the achievement of a clear, faithful, and coherent expression of legislative policies Functions: Drafting legislation at all stages of the legislative process

3. Nonpartisan Bound by attorney-client privilege No requirement that legislation be drafted by the Office Specialization by attorneys

4. Nature of requests Converting a proposal into legislative language – Problems of form Choosing the appropriate measure (formatted in Xmetal) Using a uniform style Impact of House rules – Problems of policy Application, administration, enforcement, and timing Relation to existing law/positive, nonpositive law

5. By what authority does Congress act?

6. The Office prepares bills for introduction, reported bills, Ramseyers, and the first page of committee reports for committees, amendments for committee and the floor, and conference reports (with SOLC) Once bills are introduced, the files are retrieved from the Offices database for printing by GPO The Office can share documents with SOLC through an FTP connection Work product is confidential

7. Work product is driven by congressional timelines We must produce as accurate a work product as possible within time constraints dictated by Congress Deadlines require efficient ways of sharing data as legislation moves through Congress Any tools developed for increasing the accuracy and efficiency of our work product must be compatible with operations of Clerk, SOLC, and GPO

8. --Drafts are composed in XMetal, are delivered in PDF and/or XML format --Cornerstone of drafting is the numbered section: