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Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Article IV, Sections 27 through 32 of the Oregon State Constitution

In this post we will look at Article IV, Section 27 through 32 of the Oregon State Constitution.  Article IV deals with the Legislative branch of government.
Section 27 defines that by default, every law is a public law.  Here is a link that discusses some types of law.
Section 28 defines that all laws passed shall take effect only 90 days after the session in which they were passed has ended.  This can be circumvented and the law become effective sooner in the case of an "emergency".  However the intent here is that this 90 period allows for the citizens to organize a referendum as per Article IV, Section 1(3)(a) if they object to the law.  A lot of laws get written such that they take effect January 1st of the year following the one they were passed.  As a result, you get new stories such as this.
Section 29 guarantees the legislators get paid. But not much, so don't get into it for the money.
Section 30 repeats what is in some other earlier section that representatives and senators cannot hold multiple government positions.  Pretty clearly to prevent conflicts of interest.
Section 31 defines the oath of office that needs to be administered and that the Governor, Secretary of State or a judge of the Supreme Court shall administer it.  Recently in the news was a story that they were not going to allow the oath to be taken via Skype.
Section 32 deals with income tax.  This section specifically allows for the State of Oregon to piggy-back onto the federal income tax rules and concur with them.
There's not really a lot to say about these sections.  And since we looked at 33 last post, that brings us to the end of Article IV.  Next we'll look at Article V which deals with the Executive Branch.

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