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Sunday, June 04, 2006
Ind. Law - Warning to those who rely on the online Indiana Administrative Code
Warning! The ILB has written at length in earlier entries about how the Indiana Register will no longer be published. The General Assembly and its staff agency, the Indiana Legislative Services Agency (LSA), have decided to eliminate it, despite protests of law librarians and the legal community.
Although this monthly, paged document, along with its indices, tables and other aids, has not been available as a printed publication for a number of years (except to legislators), it has been published online. That practice will end this month.
In its place, the LSA has announced, the hundreds of various rulemaking documents, notices, non-rule policy documents, etc., etc., will simply be posted online as individual documents as the LSA staff gets to them.
At a meeting I attended May 15th (see an ILB entry about the meeting here, along with links to related entries), we were told that the online Indiana Admnistrative Code (IAC), which is the codified version of the various agencies' rules) would continue to be provided online. (Citizens have been unable to purchase a printed version of the IAC for years.)
The printed version of the IAC, when it was available, came out annually. The online version of the IAC is updated monthly and thus is always current.
Or at least it has been in the past. Today I was reviewing some water rules and discovered that the rules I was looking at, in 327 IAC 8, do not include amendments that I know took effect May 23, 2006.
Then I looked back to the main page and read that the entire online IAC was last updated "April 26th, 2006"!
When a number of us at the LSA meeting last month, run by Phil Sachtleben, executive director of the Legislative Services Agency, complained about the cutbacks the General Assembly was making in the services it has traditionally provided to the public involving access to the statute law and rules, and how those changes were damaging the historical record, he said: "Aren't there private publishers doing this?"
The clear implication was -- this is not our responsibility. Sachtleben, BTW, is reportedly leaving the LSA for a lobbying job with Ball State shortly.
I hope to write more about this later this week. I also hope to write of concerns about the Indiana Code and the Acts of Indiana. I have heard from some law librarians, I'd like to hear from more, as well as others concerned about, or affected by, the retreat of our General Assembly from, what I at least consider to be, its responsibility to make the laws of Indiana accessible to its citizens.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 4, 2006 12:49 PM
Posted to Indiana Government | Indiana Law