2013 ADVANCED WORKSHOP ON LEGISLATIVE DRAFTING

Overview

This course offers an intensive experience in drafting legislation. The course assists participants in mastering legislative provisions that pose special challenges to legislative drafters. Participants will do several medium-length drafting assignments and draft a longer, complex bill. Some prior experience in legislative drafting or legislation is helpful.

Course Outline

Drafting a Simple Bill

• Learning to convert a legislative proposal into a bill for introduction in a legislative chamber

Drafting Amendments to a Bill and to Law

• Committee "markup" amendments
• "Floor" (whole House) amendments
• Amendments to existing law

Instruction on Specialized Legislative Processes

• Working with legislative committee
• Budget and appropriations rules and problems

Drafting a Government Grant Program

• Instruction in selection and drafting of legislative language authorizing grants

Drafting Government Reorganization

• Establish a Government Agency
• Abolish a Government Agency
• Consolidating Government Agencies
• Savings ("grandfather") clauses
• Transition provisions
• Repeals
  

Drafting a Complex Bill

• Organization of Legislative Provisions
• Close Supervision and Review of Drafting Work

Course Advisor

Arthur J. Rynearson served as the Deputy Legislative Counsel of the United States Senate from 1999 to 2003. For more than 26 years, he was an attorney-drafter in the Office of the Legislative Counsel, United States Senate, where he drafted thousands of bills, resolutions, and amendments. He has 20 years experience teaching legislative drafting and legislation to foreign parliamentarians, attorneys, and law students. He also served as a legislative researcher for the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress. He is a graduate of the Cornell University Law School, where he specialized in international legal affairs, and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Hamilton College, where he majored in Government.