REPORT NO. 3. OLD POINT COMFORT, August 9, 1905. To the Virginia State Bar Association: Your Committee have the honor to report, that at the second adjourned meeting, held this evening, a quorum being present, upon their applications properly authenticated, the following named gentlemen were unanimously elected to membership of the Virginia State Bar Association, to wit: 20. Robert W. Withers 21. Samuel R. Benton . Suffolk Newport News And the action of your Committee is respectfully submitted to the Association for confirmation. E. E. STICKLEY, Chairman. REPORT NO. 4. OLD POINT COMFORT, To the Virginia State Bar Association: Your Committee now have the honor to make their final report, saying that at the third adjourned meeting of the Committee, held this morning, a quorum being present, upon application duly and properly authenticated, the following gentleman was unanimously elected a member of the Bar Association, viz: 22. James F. Wright Portsmouth Making twenty-two new members, and the same is respectfully submitted to the Association for confirmation. No further business before the Committee, the adjournment sine die was made with the commendation to these twenty-two young men who have cast their lot with this great Association, that they so demean themselves by the use of all earnest endeavor to sustain the honor of our profession and engage to advance the Association in its excellent work. The new Committee on Admissions met this afternoon, quorum present, and organized by the re-election of E. E. Stickley, Chairman, and Otho F. Mears, Secretary, for current year. Report of Committee on Library and Legal Literature To the Virginia State Bar Association: Your Committee, on consideration, has come to the conclusion that one of the most interesting subjects within its scope is to improve the form of our public acts of assembly. This was a cardinal subject in its very first report made to this body at the session of 1889. That report was accompanied by a draft containing a full list of acts of assembly up to that date in the form of a bill. The bill was submitted to the Legislature and passed the House, but on account of a hostility to the Association which then existed, it failed of passage in the Senate. That hostility happily no longer exists, and the bill has at least accomplished the purpose of giving an accurate list of the Acts of Assembly. The importance of citing the acts by the volume, instead of the year, may not be realized in this generation, but in a State where the legislative sessions are biennial, that is the only way short of examining the Senate and House journals by which to ascertain whether there was a session in a given year. This Committee was the pioneer in that attempted improvement, and since then the subject has been made prominent by the discussion of the advocates of uniform legislation, with the result that in most of the other states of the Union a marked improvement has been introduced into the legislative acts. It is the belief of the Committee that the Virginia Bar, to say nothing of the Virginia people, should be entitled to the same facilities. The Committee annexes to this report a draft of statutes necessary to effect this purpose. The main advantages of these statutes are, in the first place, to provide for promptly obtaining copies of new bills. Although the new Constitution has resulted in diminishing greatly the number of bills that go into effect with their passage, there are still many that in the eyes of their draftsmen are emergency acts. In a recent publication it is stated that it is easier now to find out amendments in current German and Austrian laws than those in the laws of our own State. Another important object that would be accomplished is the creation of a permanent official to put laws in the best possible shape; and still another, certain requirements bringing about simplicity of citation and ease of handling. The first bill is intended to accomplish this purpose. The reason for proposing the amendment to Sections 206 and 207 of the Code is that certain duties devolved by this statute upon the new official are now devolved upon another, and to that extent these acts will be affected. The object of the amendment to the last section is to provide for the prompt publication of the bills, and for their being furnished to any one desiring them. The duties of the official draftsman and compiler are taken almost literally from the Connecticut statute on the same subject. The provision as to the prompt publication of the bills is substantially the same as the Pennsylvania statute on the subject. The Committee believes that if the matter is properly presented to the General Assembly, it will cheerfully adopt these recommendations and bring our published statutes up to a parity with those of the other leading states. Respectfully submitted, ROBT. M. HUGHES, JNO. GARLAND POLLARD, CHAS. T. LASSITER, E. M. BRAXTON. An Act to Provide for the Preparation of Bills and Their Arrangement for Publication in Permanent Form, and to Establish an Official Draftsman and Compiler for the Purpose. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Virginia: 1. That the Governor shall appoint, subject to confirmation by the General Assembly, in joint session, an official draftsman and compiler of bills. His term of office shall commence on the first day of February, be ginning with February first, 1906, and shall continue for four years; and his salary shall be $1,500.00 per annum. 2. It shall be his duty to assist members of the General Assembly in drafting bills for public acts and legislation of a public nature, and to prepare amendments to or substitutes for bills or resolutions at the request of committees. Every bill or resolution favorably acted upon by any committee of the General Assembly shall, before being reported to either branch thereof, be first submitted to him. He shall examine such bill or resolution in respect to its form, for the purpose of avoiding repetition and unconstitutional provisions, and insuring accuracy in the text and references, clearness and conciseness in the phraseology, and the consistency of any statutes, and shall return to the committee submitting it any bill or resolution that is not in correct form, with such corrections as he may propose in the form of a substitute or as amendments. He shall supervise the printing of the bills or resolutions reported favorably, and, under the direction of the Committee on Engrossed Bills, he shall supervise the engrossing of passed bills and resolutions, and advise said committee of needed corrections. 3. He shall also arrange the bills for permanent publication, and prepare the manuscript to be published in permanent form as the Acts of Assembly. In making this compilation, the bills shall be numbered consecutively and designated as chapters. Hereafter the printed volumes of the Acts of Assembly shall also be numbered consecutively, beginning with No. 109 for the current volume. There shall be printed as a head-line on each page the words, “Acts of Assembly," preceded by the volume and followed by the year, and also followed by the chapter number of any bill beginning on the page. Hereafter a sufficient citation of the Acts shall be the words, "Va. Acts," preceded by the volume and followed by the chapter number. Arabic numerals shall be used throughout, not only in these chapter headings, but in the captions or bodies of bills, wherever citations, dates or amounts may be expressed by Arabic numerals instead of letters. It shall also be his duty, in addition to the tables now required, to prepare a tabulation of all changes in statutes passed since Pollard's Annotated Code, and to print the same as an appendix. It shall also be his duty to prepare an index to each volume of the Acts of Assembly, following, as far as possible, a system uniform with the more recent standard digests. It shall also be his duty to report to each regular session of the General Assembly such defects or omissions as he may discover in existing statutes, with his recommendations thereon. He shall turn over the manuscript to the Superintendent of Public Printing for publication, and shall correct the proofs. |