A little noticed part of the WI Budget Act (Act 20) requires the Legislative Reference Bureau to certify the online version of the Wisconsin Statutes. The online statutes will be considered prima facie evidence of the law–the legal equivalent of the printed statutes.
2013 WI Act 20, section 575L states:
35.18 (2) (b) of the statutes is created to read:
35.18 (2) (b) After making the necessary comparison, the legislative reference bureau shall publish on the Internet, and with each electronic publication of the Wisconsin statutes under sub. (1) (b), a certification that the bureau has compared each section of the Wisconsin statutes published under sub. (1) (b) with the original section of the statutes, or with the original section contained in the enrolled act from which the section was derived, together with all amendments of such original section, if any, and that all the sections appear to be correctly published. The certification shall indicate any electronic file formats in which the statutes are published that do not contain all graphic images and tables due to incompatibility with the electronic file format.
According to Steven Miller, Chief at the LRB, the certification of the online statutes should be happening very soon.
Also coming very soon will be the removal of the “Beta” tag for the ebook version of the Wisconsin Statutes. The statutes are available in both epub or mobi (Kindle) format. Note that the functionality of links to external documents is device-dependent.
I downloaded the mobi file to my Kindle app on my iPad and found that it works very well. It’s nice to have a full version of the statutes that I can access anytime – including when I’m offline. An RSS feed is available to alert me to the latest updates to the Statutes ebook.
Kudos to the LRB for all of the wonderful technological advancements that they are making.