8/02/2007

Legal Authority

Mayoral Candidate, Ed McKnight, has spent an awful lot of time poking around the City Codes regarding the operation of City Government. (See, for example, here and here.)

For Ed's benefit, as well as the rest of you who want to play along at home, I would merely point out that there are significantly more rules than just those contained in the City Code. For starters, one might look at Title 2 and Title 7 of the Montana Code Annotated.

3 comments:

Ed Mcknight said...

Thanks for the pointer G. Theres a big difference between crying foul and simply trying to improve on something. If anyone can show how or where I'm off course here I would only appreciate it. If I'm going to suggest changes, and listen to suggested changes I'm going to need a thorough understanding of how we arrived at this point in the first place.

Anonymous said...

Are rules the same as annotated code?

I don't understand rule making powers vs. annotated code.

GeeGuy said...

That's a fairly broad question and to answer it correctly one needs more context.

In a general sense, though, the code consists of statutes passed by the legislature. Rules are typically adopted by the executive branch after the power to do so has been delegated to it by the legislature. (This whole thing is a real pet peeve of mine; don't get me started.) Rules so adopted typically have the force of law unless found to contradict actual law (statute, constitution, common law).

In another context, the rule making power is used to distinguish between some boards and commissions and others. In other words, there are certain statutory provisions applicable to boards with rule making power and not others.

An annotated code is simply a version of a code that is annotated, i.e. marked up with references to notes or other authorities such as relevant cases, etc.