The short title of this Manual is the “OLS Legislative Drafting Manual”.
(a) The Office for Legislative Support is the legislative drafting service of the Federal Government. The Office provides nonpartisan and timely legislative drafting and research services to government officials and the public, as time permits.
(b) This manual has been prepared by the Office of Legislative Support primarily to promote greater stylistic uniformity in the work product of the Congress and to promote clarity, readability, and accessibility to the law.
(c) This manual is not intended to be a treatise on legislative drafting, but rather a guidebook for interested individuals. It is hoped that this manual will assist the members of Congress, government officials, and interested members of the public in drafting bills.
(d) Comments and suggestions for improvements are encouraged and may be sent to the Director of the Office of Legislative Support.
(a) Why some uniform drafting style is needed. The Office of Legislative Support is a service organization. Its purpose is to provide services that best furthers the interests of its clients. This is carried out in the midst of constantly changing circumstances and demands, indeed often in the midst of chaos. In order to provide good service in the midst of changing and often chaotic circumstances, at least two things are needed: good judgment and good tools. Good judgment is obviously more important, but good tools are essential in implementing good judgment. Style is one of those tools. To be a good tool, style should be defined clearly. It should be one of the steady, predictable elements that people use to reduce chaos to order, and not one of the fluctuating factors that contribute to the chaos. A good uniform style is one that gives clearly defined, steady, and predictable guidance for the structure and expression of legislation.
(b) Benefits of any good style uniformly applied.
(1) A uniform style can be helpful in drafting.
(A) Stable framework. Through the application of uniform principles regarding structure, a stable framework is provided for organizing and expressing the proposal in an orderly, consistent manner.
(B) Consistency. Through the application of standard rules of usage, consistency in expression can be obtained.
(2) A uniform style can be helpful to the reader.
(A) Communication. A uniform style can help communicate the message by enabling the reader to concentrate on the important part of the message without being distracted by mere stylistic differences.
(B) Orderliness and consistency. In addition, most people, but particularly readers of law, have a need for (or at least an expectation of) orderliness and consistency in the expression of ideas that can be satisfied by use of a uniform style.
The table of contents for this Manual is as follows:
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