Wisconsin Politics: Legislative history

Guide Prepared by Bonnie Shucha, UW Law Library

Wisconsin Briefs from the Legislative Reference Bureau. Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau. Prepared by Michael J. Keane, Senior Legislative Analyst, and Kristina Martinez, Reference and Instruction Librarian.

Includes federal and state cases, statutes, regulations, international materials and a variety of secondary resources including reference materials, law journals and newspapers. Access is restricted to faculty and students of Marquette University Law School through individual usernames and passwords

The Wisconsin Statutes consist of the Statutes of 1898, as affected by all subsequent acts of the legislature and certain orders of the supreme court. Joint Legislative Rule 53 (1) provides that when an act, or part of an act, creates a statute section number, there is a legislative intent to make the section a part of the Wisconsin Statutes, and that provision is published as a statute in the Wisconsin Statutes and Annotations. Conversely, if an act treats a provision that does not have a statute section number, the provision is not published in the Wisconsin Statutes and Annotations, even though it is a general law. The omission of a general law from the Wisconsin Statutes and Annotations has no effect upon its validity.

Constitution, statutes, acts

Proposals, amendments, records, acts, journals

Drafting records are the official, administrative records of the bill drafting process, and are maintained by the Legislative Reference Bureau.

The budget drafts in this database are separated out from all other legislation. You can find it by searching for, for example, “2005 Budget". You can also find it by choosing the correct session folder; then, the budget will be listed, followed by its act number and original bill number.

Research can begin (but does not have to begin) outside of the budget bills folder, with the Budget Index Report. 2001- Budget Index Reports are available online (see below). Older Budget Index Reports are available by contacting the Legislative Reference Bureau.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau is a nonpartisan service agency of the Wisconsin Legislature, responsible for providing policy, program and fiscal analyses to the Legislature, legislative leaders, the Joint Committee on Finance, and individual legislators