Series 83155

A separate agency history is available.

DESCRIPTION: After each regular and special session of the state legislature or the territorial assembly, the laws that were passed were compiled and published as the Laws of Utah. The act of publishing the laws was an important step in the legislative process. Until 1972, laws were not considered to be in effect until they had first been published, a requirement dating from the 1849 Constitution of the State of Deseret. In the early territorial days, acts were often published in the newspaper as well, and the law named specific public officials who were to receive a copy. [Acts, Resolutions, and Memorials for the Territory of Utah 1851, page 213-214.] The production of this series has its origin in this requirement.

The Secretary of the Territory was given responsibility for handling the financial details and for making arrangements for publication. When Utah became a state in 1896, the Board of Examiners assumed this responsibility, but by 1907 the Secretary of State's office was again in charge. They were followed in 1967 by the Finance Department and then the State Archives from 1969-1985. Currently, the Office of Legislative Printing arranges for their publication and distribution.

Legislative sessions were held annually until 1870, usually in the winter, from December to March. After that date biennial sessions were held in even numbered years until statehood. Starting with the second session of the new state legislature in 1897, biannual sessions were switched to odd numbered years. The 13th state legislature held the first special session in 1919, and after that date one or more special sessions began to be held more often. Special sessions are convened by the governor to consider legislative matters that need to be resolved immediately, before the next regular session of the legislature convenes.

A 1968 change in the state constitution created the budget session, and the first of these was held in 1970. These were held during the even numbered years when the regular session did not meet, and only government funding issues were considered. The constitution of the state was changed again in 1985 to provide for annual sessions of the legislature, eliminating the biannual budget session.

In addition to the laws and resolutions passed at each session of the legislature, additional information about state government is regularly added to the volumes. A listing of individual members of the legislature and the districts they represent has been a standard addition since 1896; only in more recent volumes has more detailed information about them, such as party affiliation and committee assignments, been added to this basic list. During the territorial period, a list of assembly members appears in only a few of the volumes. In some years only lists of federal officials are included; in others, no additional information accompanies the Laws of the Territorial Assembly. Federal laws affecting territories or a copy of the U.S. Constitution is also sometimes added to the laws from this period. The volume for the 2nd session also contains a copy of the Constitution of the State of Deseret, and a reprint of the laws passed by that body.

Beginning in 1901, listings of major state administrative and judicial officials were added. Lists of Utah representatives in Congress first appear in 1917. The U.S. Constitution and the Enabling Act creating Utah territory are part of the first volumes of the laws; the Utah State Constitution appears in 1896 and again in 1931.

ARRANGEMENT: The series is arranged chronologically by year of legislative session. Volumes from multiple sessions held in any given year may not be in chronological order. Within each volume, laws are arranged into numbered chapters, which corresponds generally to an alphabetical arrangement by topic. The laws were organized by chapter numbers first in 1870; prior to this, laws were printed in chronological order as they were passed.

RESEARCH NOTE: Tracing the history of legislation in the series can be most effectively done by using individual volumes in conjunction with series 83238, UTAH CODE ANNOTATED. Included in each volume of the LAWS OF UTAH are only those statutes either first passed or revised during the session in that particular year. Laws already in force at the time of the legislative session, which were not revised, are not reprinted in each volume of the LAWS OF UTAH.

Until the publication of the Utah Code in the 1940s, Utah's laws were only periodically compiled or recodified. When the year in which a specific statute was first passed is not known, or when trying to learn whether a specific law regulating a particular area existed in any given year, it is best to begin searching in a volume of the UTAH CODE ANNOTATED.

First check the edition of the UTAH CODE ANNOTATED published after the year when the law might have been passed. Once a law is located in the code the date of its initial passage or last revision is usually noted at the end of the section. From this date, it is then possible to identify which volume of the laws should contain the original act.

Checking volumes in between these two points will also identify any revisions that occurred between its original passage and its appearance in the UTAH CODE ANNOTATED. If the date represents a revision, check the LAWS OF UTAH during the year it was revised. The laws in this volume will identify the statute it in turn is revising, or the date of the original law.

With the publication of the 1953 Utah Code Annotated, the practice of publishing regular updates began, so that researching the history of a law passed after 1953 can be more easily done by using that series. The numbering system used in the code differs from that used in the LAWS OF UTAH. Access by topic is sometimes an effective way to move between the two, unless the specific code or chapter numbers revised or updated are cited in the text. Beginning with the 1933 volume, an index, or table, was added listing the titles, chapters, and sections, of the Utah code actually revised by a particular statute.

RELATED RECORDS: Series 3148, ACTS, RESOLUTIONS, AND MEMORIALS JOURNALS are manuscript copies of the Laws as passed by the territorial assembly or the state legislature until 1911. Series 83238, UTAH CODE ANNOTATED contains the compiled laws of Utah which cumulate the laws passed in each session of the legislature between compilations. This series also contains the Parallel Tables, discussed in the finding aids section. Series of House of Representatives and State Senate bills can be located through the series catalog. These contain the original versions of laws eventually published in this series. Changes in laws which occurred during the legislative process can be understood by consulting these records. Utah Code Unnannotated, series 1052, is similar, but without the in-depth annotations for cross-reference.

Legislative journals, series 3145, series 409, series 456, and series 16660 are minutes which note progress of laws through the Legislature. Series 4076, Legislative Bills filed in the Lieutenant Governor's office, contain the final versions of bills enacted into law which are published here.

FINDING AIDS: Subject indexes are included in most of the volumes. Later volumes also have cross-reference by bill number and code section number plus other tables. In addition, one particular item that may be of use to those doing research in the LAWS OF UTAH and the UTAH CODE ANNOTATED is The Utah Code Annotated Parallel Tables. This was an effort to coordinate changes in the code made since 1898. Essentially the tables show which specific statutes in the 1953 UTAH CODE ANNOTATED (or updates) have been carried over from either the 1943 edition of the code, or from earlier editions of the compiled laws of 1933, 1917, 1907, and 1898. The parallel tables and their updates are either bound as part of index volume 10, or published as a separate volume. A table of session laws, showing how those have been codified, is also included.

PROCESSING NOTE: Reel #1, which contains the microfilm copy of most of the first twenty-six sessions of the territorial assembly was filmed originally in 1949 as part of the national State Microfilming Project, sponsored by the University of North Carolina and the Library of Congress. The Archives purchased a copy during the 1960s. In several cases, the only copy held by the Utah State Archives of the laws of a particular legislative session is on this reel of microfilm. Volumes published before 1972 were microfilmed between 1965 and 1983. Volumes published 1972-1988 were microfilmed in 1988. Archival processing was also completed in that year by Val Wilson. Additional filming and container list updates were completed as necessary.

Initially, one volume existed for each regular, special, or budget session; later, special sessions were bound with that of the regular session. Laws passed during sessions held from 1890-94 are also bound together. Three sessions--the 4th session, 1854/55; the 15th, 1865/66; and the 22nd, 1876--were apparently only published as part of compilations, see UTAH CODE ANNOTATED, Series 83238. Certain others exist only in microfilm: the 2nd, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 18th, and 20th sessions and were filmed together as part of the State Microfilming Project. Copies of the laws from the 17th session of the territorial assembly were duplicated on this microfilm; while that of the 7th session includes a handwritten copy as well as a printed one.

CONTAINER LIST