Important Points to remember When Reading a Bill:

  1. Language in current law that remains unchanged appears in a bill in lower cases letters.
  2. All new language, except new temporary language, appears in capitalized form.
  3. Language to be deleted from existing law appears with a line through it.
  4. Sections being repealed totally and not amended or reenacted, are not printed in the bill; rather, a statement that the section is being repealed appears in the title and the repealed appears in the title and the repeal clause. An existing section being amended requires repeal of the section as it existed prior to amending and reenactment of the section with the amending language.
  5. Unless an act contains a tax levy, an appropriation, an emergency clause, or a delayed effective date, it becomes effective on the 91st day after being filed with the Secretary of State.
  6. A bill becomes an "act" upon completion of action by both houses. It is then reprinted in a different form, with the addition of the signature page and the words "An Act" replacing the words "A bill." An act becomes law:
    • Upon signature of the Governor;
    • Without the signature of the Governor and the Governor has had it for ten days, excluding Sundays;
    • When a Governor's veto is overridden by a three-fifths majority vote of the members of each house.
  7. Temporary law appears in normal capitalization and punctuation, at the end of the bill.
  8. With few exceptions, letters are not normally capitalized in the codified statutes unless they are the first letter in a sentence, or the first letter of a proper noun (Revised Code, "Ohio"). Letters that are to remain capitalized in the law after enactment are both capitalized and underlined in the bill to distinguish them from other capitalized letters.
  9. New numbers and new punctuation marks are underlined in a bill, unless they are contained within new material, and existing numbers and existing punctuation marks being deleted are stricken through.
  10. Numerical references to money or population are spelled out in a bill. Tables of numbers, however, such as the classification tables and pay ranges of state employees, and dates ("July 1, 1995") are in numerical form in a bill

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