The Office of Legislative Services of
Puerto Rico was created on January 27, 1954 to provide research, translation, library and legislative drafting services to all members of the
Puerto Rico Legislative Assembly. Its duties are similar to those of the
Congressional Research Service.
The Office is headed by a Director, currently Juan Luis Martinez Martinez, appointed jointly by the President of the
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
and the Speaker of the
House of Representatives. Two of the Office's directors,
Carlos V. Dávila and
Rafael Alonso-Alonso, have subsequently served as Associate Justices of the
Puerto Rico Supreme Court. Another two,
Nélida Jiménez-Velázquez and
Teresa Medina Monteserrín, have moved on to the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals, and three have become Superior Court judges, including
Juan R. Melecio-Machuca,
Carlos García-Jaunarena and Elba Rosa Rodríguez-Fuentes.
It is physically located in the
Antonio R. Barceló
Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular male ...
Legislative Building, formerly known as the Tropical Medicine Building. The Office has 16 divisions, 11 of which provide direct services to the Legislative Assembly, as well as to the general public: the Legislative Library, Translations, Digitalization, Information Systems, Senate and House Committee Archives, FBI Archives, Legislative Research, Proof Reading and Processing, Capitol Tourism, Internship Programs, Puerto Rico's Historian, Document Administration, Human Capital, Procurement and General Services, Budget and Finances, and the Capitol Infirmary. Its budget currently exceeds $11 million annually and supports a staff of about 115 attorneys, economists, translators, librarians, technicians, tour guides, doctors, nurses and support staff.
The Office operates the
Tomás Bonilla Feliciano Legislative Library and provides support to several internship programs, including the
Córdova Congressional Internship Program
The Córdova/Fernós Congressional Internship Program is a publicly funded internship program created in 1993 through legislation authored by then Puerto Rico senator and current Secretary of State Kenneth McClintock and signed into law by Gov. P ...
, the
Jorge Alberto Ramos Comas Legislative Internship Program and the
Pilar Barbosa Federal Internship Program for Teachers as well as the office of the
Official Historian of Puerto Rico
Pursuant to a law approved in 1903, "An Act for the Approval and Conservation of Certain Historical Data of Puerto Rico", the Puerto Rico Legislature created the Office of the Official Historian of Puerto Rico. The historians who held the position ...
. Its Translations Division provides the official translations to English of all Puerto Rico laws and regulations.
The Office is currently digitalizing and placing online hundreds of thousands of documents generated by Puerto Rico's Legislative Assembly over the past century and is the repository of the Legislature's archives of
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
(FBI) files on political surveillance in Puerto Rico resulting from a May 2000 agreement between then FBI Director
Louis Freeh, Congressman
José E. Serrano and then Senate Federal Affairs Committee chairman
Kenneth McClintock
Kenneth Davison McClintock-Hernández (born January 19, 1957) is a politician who served as the twenty-second Secretary of State of Puerto Rico, one of the four longest serving in that post. McClintock served as co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s Na ...
, Puerto Rico's current Senate president.
Th
Office's website has become an important legal, legislative and historical research tool.
Directors of the Office
*
Carlos V. Dávila (1954-1961)
*
Alberto Ferrer-Rincón (1961-1965)
*
Rafael Alonso-Alonso (1965-1969)
*
Rafael Morán Loubriel (1970-1972)
*
Sigfredo Vélez-González (1973-1976)
*
Sila Suárez de Vázquez (1977-1980)
*
Juan R. Melecio-Machuca (1981-1988)
*
Carlos García-Jaunarena (1988-1993)
*
Nélida Jiménez-Velázquez (1993-1995)
*
Teresa Medina Monteserrín (1995-1996)
*
José A. Figueroa-Lugo (1996-1999)
*
Luis G. Hidalgo-Ramírez (1999-2000)
*
Rolando Quevedo Motta (2001-2002)
*Elba Rosa Rodríguez-Fuentes (2002-2004)
*
Luis E. Fusté-Lacourt (2005)
*
Francisco Domenech (2005-2008)
*
Solange I. De Lahongrais Taylor (2009–2013)
*Juan Luis Martínez Martínez (2013-present)
References
{{Legislative branch of the government of Puerto Rico
Legislative branch of the government of Puerto Rico
1954 establishments in Puerto Rico