Bill drafting guide

The office of the code reviser created this bill drafting guide for the preparation of bills for the Washington legislature. It consists of four parts:

  Part I - Working Procedures provides a short, nontechnical explanation for submitting bill drafting requests to the code reviser's office.

  Part II - Formal and Technical Requisites describes the technical drafting rules followed by the code reviser's staff (attorneys, editors, typists, and proofreaders) in the preparation of legislation. Many of these requirements are derived from constitutional provisions, statutes, legislative rules, or case law. Sources are cited if appropriate.

  Part III - Avoiding Unintended Liability provides guidelines to follow when drafting legislation to avoid creating unintended tort liability for the state.

  Part IV - Instructions on Style is a style manual used by the code reviser's office. Included are sections on voice, punctuation, numbers, capitalization, spelling, subsection numbering, and citations.

The code reviser's office maintains an audit file that documents the history and codification of all session law sections. We will furnish historical and cross-reference information as required and assist the drafter with questions of form or style that arise in the preparation of legislation.