Act of Congress Clerk Powers Quickfix Act

[antonfr]

CONGRESS OF THE
COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
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A BILL TO

FIX §6(9) OF THE LEGISLATIVE STANDARDS ACT




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The people of the Commonwealth of Redmont, through their elected Representatives in the Congress and the force of law ordained to that Congress by the people through the constitution, do hereby enact the following provisions into law:


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PART I — PRELIMINARIES

1. Short Title and Enactment

(1) This Act may be cited as the ‘Clerk Powers Fix Act’

(2) This Act shall be enacted immediately upon its signage.

(3) This Act has been authored by Representative Antonfr.

(4) This Act has been co-sponsored by Representative Emeraldguuy.

(5) This Act amends the following acts:

(a) Legislative Standards Act

2. Reasons and Intent

(1) §6(9) of the Legislative Standards Act has become unclear due to the accumulation of multiple Clerk's Notes following the passage of the Clerk Empowerment Act.

(2) This bill resolves those issues by consolidating the relevant provisions and restoring clarity to the Legislative Standards Act.

PART II — AMENDMENTS

3. Amendments

(1) §6 of the Legislative Standards Act shall be amended as follows:

"(8) The OCA is authorised to correct section and subsection numbering within Acts, provided such corrections do not alter the substantive meaning of any provision and are limited solely to administrative numbering errors.

(9) The Presiding Officers fund the OCA's activities through provisions in the Legislative budget.

(8) The OCA is authorised to make any of the following corrections to Acts of Congress, provided that such corrections do not alter the substantive meaning of the Act and are made with the permission of at least one Presiding Officer:

(a) Adjust the numbering of sections and subsections to correct errors;

(b) Correct obvious spelling errors that are not the result of regional differences in spelling;

(c) Update names of offices and organisations when the name of that office or organisation has changed since the passage of the original Act;

(d) Remove provisions that have been explicitly declared invalid or unenforceable by another Act of Congress.

(9) The Presiding Officers shall fund the OCA's activities through provisions in the Legislative budget."

(2) Subsections 6(8)-(9) of the Legislative Standards Act, together with any corresponding Clerk Notes are repealed and replaced as shown above.

 

[xXTheoryXx]

Presidential Assent

PRESIDENTIAL ASSENT​

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This Act repeals and replaces §6(8) and §6(9) of the Legislative Standards Act, restating the correction powers of the Office of Congressional Affairs in four categories subject to the permission of a Presiding Officer, and restoring the provision funding the Office.

I grant assent for three reasons.

First, the current state of §6 cannot be allowed to stand. The Clerk Empowerment Act purported to amend §6(9), which is the provision funding the Office, and struck wording that appears nowhere in the Legislative Standards Act. Read literally, the Office of Congressional Affairs is presently without a funding provision at all. Whatever view one takes of the wider dispute, that is not a position Congress can leave the Office in, and this Act ends it immediately.

Second, the substance here is not new. Congress approved these four categories of correction when it passed the Clerk Empowerment Act. This Act places that decision where it belongs in the statute rather than making a fresh grant of authority under cover of a numbering fix. The powers remain narrow, they remain gated on the permission of a Presiding Officer, and they remain bounded by the requirement that no correction alter substantive meaning.

Third, the sponsor has placed the correct reading of §6(8)(c) on the record, and I adopt it in granting assent. That paragraph permits the updating of references only where an office or organisation has genuinely been renamed and its functions are essentially unchanged. Where a body is abolished and its responsibilities are transferred or divided, that is a substantive change, it falls outside the authority of the Office, and it is a matter for Congress. This is the operative interpretation and I expect it to be applied as such.

I record two things plainly. I make no ruling on whether the Clerk Empowerment Act validly amended §6(9), and my assent is not to be cited by any party as accepting that it did. Section 3(2) of this Act repeals and replaces §6(8) and §6(9) outright, and as the later enactment it governs regardless of what came before.

Three gaps remain and I would welcome a further bill addressing them. First, nothing in this Act ratifies corrections already made to Acts of Congress in reliance on the Clerk Empowerment Act, and those edits rest on authority whose existence is precisely what is in dispute. Second, the Act imposes no requirement to record corrections. That record exists today as practice, and it should exist as law. Third, §6(3)(a) still describes the changes the Office may make to documents of law and lists only two of the four now granted, a conflict the sponsor has acknowledged. None of these justify withholding assent from a bill that repairs a live defect, but all three should be resolved before they are tested.

My thanks to Vice President Anton Fontaine for authoring this Act and to Former Representative Emeraldguuy for co-sponsoring it, and to the sponsor in particular for answering the questions put to him directly and on the record.

The Office of Congressional Affairs serves both chambers impartially and it should be able to do its work without arguing about which version of its own empowering provision is in force. This Act settles that.

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This bill has been granted assent and is hereby signed into law.

Theory Fontaine
30th President of the Commonwealth of Redmont​