Oregon Legislative Assembly

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Oregon Legislative Assembly is the legislature for the U.S. state of Oregon. The Legislative Assembly is bicameral, meaning that it has two chambers: the Senate, whose 30 members are elected to serve four-year terms; and the House of Representatives, which has 60 members elected for two-year terms.

Each Senate district is composed of exactly two House districts: Senate District 1 contains House Districts 1 and 2, SD 2 contains HD 3 and HD 4, and so on. (Maps of Senate districts can be found in the Oregon State Senate article.)

The legislature is a citizens' assembly (meaning that most legislators have other jobs.) Its regular sessions occur in odd-numbered years, beginning on the second Monday in January. (Oregon is one of only 6 states that do not hold annual sessions.) The Oregon Constitution does not limit the length of regular sessions; the first 35 regular sessions (i.e. until 1929) lasted 50 days or less. Since 1949 no session has been shorter than 100 days. The longest session was the 72nd regular session, at 227 days, ending August 27, 2003. Most recent sessions have ended in June or July.

The governor can call the assembly into special sessions as required. In 1982 a special session lasted 37 days, and the governor called the assembly into special session five times in 2002, for a total of 52 days. The 2006 special session was the shortest in Oregon's history: five pieces of legislation were passed in only six hours.

When the legislature is not in session, legislators serve on interim committees and task forces that study issues likely to be faced during the next regular session.

[edit] See also

• Oregon State Capitol
• Oregon House of Representatives
• Oregon State Senate

[edit] External links

• Official website — A note: At the website the body is referred to as the "Oregon State Legislature", however it is constitutionally named the "Legislative Assembly".
• Legislative Assembly home page from the Oregon Blue Book website

Legislatures in the United States

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