Publication of State Administrative Regulations – Reform in Slow Motion

Abstract

Administrative regulations in many states are virtually unavailable for want of a consolidated and regularly supplemented publication. Every state's statutes are available in both code and session law forms, but very few states offer similar service for their regulations. Although most states now require the filing of such regulations with a central officer (usually the Secretary of State) only twelve states also require their publication in a manner adequate for public notice. Six states have no provision of any kind for such publication; four states reasonable statutory provision, but have not appropriated the funds necessary to effectuate them. In the rest of the states, economy and indifference have imposed varying degrees of difficulty on the citizen who would know the law as promulgated by executive and administrative agencies. The great majority of states provide access by one of the following unsatisfactory means: infrequent publication of the regulations of individual agencies issued on request or copying and selling of specifically identified regulations by the Secretary of State to interested parties. Both of these methods presuppose that the person knows of the existence and identity of an applicable regulation. This is an unlikely assumption since there is usually only one central depository for the whole state and often no index to these regulations.