The Office of Legislative Services of Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

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

Congressional Research Service

The Congressional Research Service , known as "Congress's think tank", is the public policy research arm of the United States Congress. As a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS works exclusively and directly for Members of Congress, their Committees and staff on a...

.

The Office is headed by a Director, currently Solange I. De Lahongrais Taylor, appointed jointly by the President of the Senate

Senate of Puerto Rico

The Senate of Puerto Rico is the upper house of the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico, the territorial legislature of Puerto Rico. The Senate is composed of 27 senators, representing eight constituent senatorial districts across the commonwealth, with two senators elected per district; an...

 and the Speaker of the House of Representatives

House of Representatives of Puerto Rico

The House of Representatives of Puerto Rico is the lower house of the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico, the territorial legislature of Puerto Rico...

. Two of the Office's directors, Carlos V. Dávila

Carlos V. Dávila

Carlos Victor Dávila-Dávila was the oldest living former Associate Justice of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court for many years until his death....

 and Rafael Alonso-Alonso

Rafael Alonso-Alonso

Rafael Alonso-Alonso is a former Associate Justice of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court. Born on September 9, 1939, in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, he obtained his B.A...

, 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

Juan R. Melecio-Machuca

Juan R. Melecio-Machuca was the longest-serving Director of the Office of Legislative Services of Puerto Rico, from 1981 to 1988. He was subsequently appointed a Superior Court judge by Governor Rafael Hernández Colón....

, Carlos García-Jaunarena and Elba Rosa Rodríguez-Fuentes

Elba Rosa Rodríguez-Fuentes

Elba Rosa Rodríguez-Fuentes was born in Havana, Cuba on April 27, 1948. She left Cuba in 1966 and moved to Puerto Rico, where she settled, married, and had two children. She obtained a bachelor's degree in Mathematics Education, a master's degree in Administration and Supervision, and a juris...

.

It is physically located in the Antonio R. Barceló

Antonio R. Barceló

Antonio Rafael Barceló y Martinez was a lawyer, businessman and the patriarch of what was to become one of Puerto Rico's most prominent political families...

 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

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. Pedro Rosselló...

, the Jorge Alberto Ramos Comas Legislative Internship Program and the Pilar Barbosa Federal Internship Program for Teachers

Pilar Barbosa Federal Internship Program for Teachers

The Pilar Barbosa Education Program is a program in Puerto Rico created as a means to provide professional development training opportunities for public school practitioners and educators in that city...

 as well as the office of the Official Historian of Puerto Rico

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 during the early decades of the 20th century...

. 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

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...

 (FBI) files on political surveillance in Puerto Rico resulting from a May 2000 agreement between then FBI Director Louis Freeh

Louis Freeh

Louis Joseph Freeh was the 5th Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, serving from September 1993 to June 2001....

, Congressman José E. Serrano and then Senate Federal Affairs Committee chairman Kenneth McClintock

Kenneth McClintock

Kenneth D. McClintock-Hernández is the current Secretary of State of Puerto Rico. Mr. McClintock served as co-chair of Hillary Clinton presidential campaign's National Hispanic Leadership Council in 2008, co-chaired Clinton's successful Puerto Rico primary campaign that year and served as the...

, Puerto Rico's current Senate president.

The Office's website, has become an important legal, legislative and historical research tool.

Directors of the Office

• Carlos V. Dávila
  Carlos V. Dávila
  Carlos Victor Dávila-Dávila was the oldest living former Associate Justice of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court for many years until his death....
  
   (1954-1961)
• Alberto Ferrer-Rincón (1961-1965)
• Rafael Alonso-Alonso
  Rafael Alonso-Alonso
  Rafael Alonso-Alonso is a former Associate Justice of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court. Born on September 9, 1939, in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, he obtained his B.A...
  
   (1965-1969)
• Rafael Morán Loubriel (1970-1972)
• Sigfredo Vélez-González (1973-1976)
• Sila Suárez de Vázquez (1977-1980)
• Juan R. Melecio-Machuca
  Juan R. Melecio-Machuca
  Juan R. Melecio-Machuca was the longest-serving Director of the Office of Legislative Services of Puerto Rico, from 1981 to 1988. He was subsequently appointed a Superior Court judge by Governor Rafael Hernández Colón....
  
   (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
  Elba Rosa Rodríguez-Fuentes
  Elba Rosa Rodríguez-Fuentes was born in Havana, Cuba on April 27, 1948. She left Cuba in 1966 and moved to Puerto Rico, where she settled, married, and had two children. She obtained a bachelor's degree in Mathematics Education, a master's degree in Administration and Supervision, and a juris...
  
   (2002-2004)
• Luis E. Fusté-Lacourt ((2005)
• Francisco Domenech
  Francisco Domenech
  Francisco J. Domenech is the former Director of the Office of Legislative Services of Puerto Rico .- Superdelegate controversy :...
  
   (2005-2008)
• Solange I. De Lahongrais Taylor (2009-present)