Bill Drafting Macros

WordPerfect 9

Montana Legislative Services

March 2000

For help or comments contact:

Lee Heiman -- (406) 444-3064, E-mail: lheiman@state.mt.us

Table of Contents

Pages are hypertext links when viewed in WordPerfect

Macro Menu	2

Start Bill (Bill.wcm)	3

Amend MCA (MCA.wcm)	3

New Section (new.wcm)	4

Ballot Issue (ballot.wcm)	4

Savings Clause (sav.wcm)	4

Severability Clause (sev.wcm)	4

Codification (cod.wcm)	4

Termination (term.wcm)	4

Retro. Appl'ty (retro.wcm)	4

Effective Date (eff.wcm)	4

Effective Dates (dates.wcm)	4

Imm. Eff. Date (effi.wcm)	4

Repeal (repeal.wcm)	5

Title (title.wcm)	5

Table of Contents (toc.wcm)	5

Installation

Macro Menu -- Basic Ideas:

All Bill Drafting Macros run from the Bill Drafting Menu. This menu is named "B" and can be played either by "Tools Macro Play.. b Play" or "Alt-F10 b <Enter>". Each macro on the menu has an empty circle in front of it's name. Choose a macro to play by mouse-clicking on the circle to fill it with a dot. Only one macro may be chosen. Mouse-click on OK to run the macro. The menu merely runs the macros, once you get into bill drafting you can ignore the menu and directly run the
macros. The macro names are included in the material on each macro and the last page has a table of macro names. To quick play a named macro: "Alt-F10 macro <Enter>"

Macro Usage — Code and Symbols:

Use the macros whenever they can be used. Take the time to learn them now and they will save immense amounts of time later. Time saving is only a part of the reason for the macros. They insure accuracy and they are also an important part of the Legislative Service's bill drafting system. The macros provide certain coding to a bill draft that is used in producing the bill for introduction.

Don't change the material inserted by a macro and don't edit a bill in the interests of esthetics or personal preferences -- required page ends, multiple tabs, and other codes inserted to make the draft look good must be removed by our office. Nice formatting at in drafting wastes time because the introduced bill will appear differently. The "{}" codes in drafts are use to surround material that is deleted before a bill is printed for introduction. Delete the "}" and all the material following until the next "}" is deleted -- that's usually a section. The enacting language, quotes, and period in the title are used for various title macros, if you delete them, sometimes the phrase "and providing an effective date" appears at the end of the first amended section in a bill (its the first place a quote and period appear). Each MCA section begins with a comment -- often shown as a yellow sticky-note or balloon in the left margin. The date the section was prepared for the CD- ROM is stored in the comment. We use the date for error checking. Please do not delete the comment.

Position the cursor where you want the particular item to go before you start the macro.

If you want to stop the macro while it's running mouse-click on Cancel, but don't be surprised if your document looks a little worse for wear when it reappears. You may have to do some cleanup on it.

Macros that add something to the title should be run in the order they appear in the title. In other words do the repealer, effective date, then termination date so the way they appear in the title is correct.

Bill Drafting Macros (The macro name is in italics and follows the menu choice. To quickly play the macro use: "Alt-F10 macro<Enter>". It is not necessary to enter the ".wcm" to play the macro.)

Start Bill (Bill.wcm) — The macro that starts off the process. If the menu macro (b.wcm) is run with a blank document, this choice is the default menu choice. Run it once before anything else. The startup menu asks for an LC number; you can use your equivalent. It defaults to a bill, but choose a type of resolution, if appropriate. The macro sets up various style and paragraph definitions for the bill. At the beginning it asks for the bill name. When printed, the draft shows the time of printing and LC name you gave it appears as a running footer
on the bottom right of the page.

The macro expects to find the file "Name.bd" in your directory that was created at the time of installation. This is the file that inserts the drafter's name, title, agency, and phone number at the bottom of a bill. If you don't have it in your directory then create one. Its a WordPerfect document. Use Univers condensed font, 11 pt, single spaced, with your name, title, agency, and phone number (the "{}" are part of the macro not name.bd.) Save this as Name.bd. Mine reads:

Lee Heiman

Staff Attorney

Montana Legislative Council

(406) 444-3064

Amend MCA (MCA.wcm) —The "all-in-one" macro. Use to retrieve an MCA section. Have the cursor at the left margin where you want the section. It retrieves the section, with the necessary amendatory wording at the beginning, automatic paragraph number, section number tagged for the title macro, opening and closing quotes, and an internal reference report. Check each section in the report and use WordPerfect to put an "x" by each cite checked. Don't mark a printout of the bill, because the mark is lost at the next printing and doesn't travel with the electronic version..

The macro waits to accept a series of MCA sections if you wish. After the first section it gives the last section number retrieved to help entering a long listing of sections. It goes faster after the first section in each title.

For Constitution sections, you must manually retrieve them. The text of the Constitution is stored on the CD-ROM under cd-rom path:\CONST. Use "Insert File..." and change directories to cd-rom path:\CONST and you will see a listing of the Articles of the Constitution. Retrieve the Article with the section you need, and delete the unwanted stuff.

New Section (new.wcm) — At your cursor inserts

NEW SECTION. Section 1. _

The cursor is within bold codes for writing the catch line. The number is automatic and adjusts if sections are inserted before it.

Ballot Issue (ballot.wcm) — At the cursor inserts standard section for putting a statewide issue on the general election ballot in November 2002.

Savings Clause (sav.wcm)

Severability Clause (sev.wcm)— At the cursor inserts either a standard savings clause or severability clause. No drafter intervention required. There isn't a "nonseverability clause" macro.

Codification (cod.wcm)— Creates a codification instruction at the point you put the macro. Enter the section numbers from the bill that are appropriate. Use a phrase like the examples, but don't set them in quotes. The check box for multiple sections is important to keep the verbs correct. Enter at least the title number, and chapter and part numbers if appropriate.

Termination (term.wcm) — Macro that inserts a termination section at the cursor and inserts necessary phrase in title. It stops for you to fill in the termination date.

Retro. Appl'ty (retro.wcm) — Inserts the following and inserts the necessary phrase in the title:

NEW SECTION. Section 1. {standard} Retroactive applicability. [This act] applies retroactively, within the meaning of 1-2-109, to _

Effective Date (eff.wcm)

Effective Dates (dates.wcm) — At cursor inserts effective date or dates section and allows you to fill in the applicable date or dates. It inserts the necessary phrase in the title to show an effective date is within the bill.

Imm. Eff. Date (effi.wcm) — At cursor inserts an immediate effective date section in the bill and inserts the necessary phrase in the title.

Repeal (repeal.wcm) — Inserts a standard repealer clause at the cursor. Automatically lists internal references. Keep entering one section at a time in the order they should appear in section. Takes the listing and puts into the title.

Title (title.wcm)— LAST drafting macro. Lists sections amended in the bill into the title in the order in which they appear in the bill. Takes some time on very big bills, but gets every amended section inserted with the Amend MCA macro. Put the cursor where you want the listing to appear. If you want to run the macro a second time, just delete the MCA listing in the title created by the first macro and run it again. If there is only one MCA section in the bill, you will have to correct the title language a bit.

Table of Contents (toc.wcm) Creates a new document that is a table of contents for the bill. The bill document is saved, and the table of contents document is created with the same name as the draft, ending with ".toc". This avoids unnecessary coding and material in the bill
draft. Just print out the table of contents document and attach it to the bill draft.