Washington » The House overwhelmingly approved a bill Thursday named in honor of former Utah Rep. Bill Orton that would boost funding to the Law Library of Congress.
Orton, a Democrat who represented Utah's 3rd Congressional District for six years in the 1990s, died in April in an all-terrain vehicle accident. He was 60.
"Bill Orton was a tireless advocate for the law library and this legislation is a fitting way to honor his memory," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., the proposal's sponsor. "He understood that it wasn't flashy, but it was important. And actually that is just like Bill, a guy who wasn't flashy, but who was serious and did important things for his country."
The measure passed 383-44. Utah Reps. Jim Matheson, Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz supported the bill, which now will go before the Senate.
Lofgren's proposal would change the name from the Law Library of Congress to the National Law Library and provide an additional $3.5 million to help reduce the backlog in books that have not yet been cataloged.
It also would create the "William Orton Program," which would solicit outside donations and create partnerships between the law library and groups such as the American Bar Association to fund its ongoing operations.
Orton pushed this proposal in 2008, when he represented the bar association in a congressional hearing. He said then that nearly a third of the law library's volumes remained uncataloged and "accessible only to select law library staff." When members of Congress asked Orton and the bar association if they would help with the funding challenges, he responded, "emphatically yes."
