confusing short title and title

gercohen — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:43:35 -0400

Ryan, you are not setting out the titles as the main object in your post, but the short titles. Both the short title and the title appear both in the bill and in the searchable online database. The short title is limited to 45 characters and spaces. The short title is what appears on the floor calendar and as the header in the School of Government Daily Bulletin, it is also used by our indexers to help them build our term word index, which is done by people, not a computer.

"Eminent Domain" is the short title, the full title is stated clearly in the bill is "AN ACT to allow differential treatment of nonprofit organizations whose property is condemned so as to allow replacement value rather than fair market value." and is not hidden anywhere.

If the bill is enacted, the short title drops away. It is just used for internal reference. The drafter took a 138 character long title WHICH APPEARS AT THE TOP OF THE PUBLIC DOCUMENT and shortened it to 14 for the SHORT title. If the short title has been "differential treatment of nonprofits" would that have conveyed more or less information about the bill compared to "EMINENT DOMAIN". We chose the latter.

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confusing short title and title