Secretary of State of Montana
Encyclopedia
The Secretary of State
Secretary of State (U.S. state government)
Secretary of State is an official in the state governments of 47 of the 50 states of the United States, as well as Puerto Rico and other U.S. possessions. In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, this official is called the Secretary of the Commonwealth...

 of Montana
is one of the elected constitutional officers of executive branch of the U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

.

The current Secretary of State is Linda McCulloch
Linda McCulloch
Linda McCulloch is the current secretary of state of Montana. A Democrat, she was elected to the office in November 2008 and took office in January 2009, having defeated incumbent Republican Brad Johnson. McCulloch previously served as state superintendent of public instruction from 2005 until...

.

Organization

The Secretary of State's Office is composed of five divisions:
  • The Administrative Rules Services Division is the administrative law
    Administrative law
    Administrative law is the body of law that governs the activities of administrative agencies of government. Government agency action can include rulemaking, adjudication, or the enforcement of a specific regulatory agenda. Administrative law is considered a branch of public law...

     arm of the Secretary's office, filing rule notices, rule adoptions, and interpretations, and publishing the state register
    Gazette
    A gazette is a public journal, a newspaper of record, or simply a newspaper.In English- and French-speaking countries, newspaper publishers have applied the name Gazette since the 17th century; today, numerous weekly and daily newspapers bear the name The Gazette.Gazette is a loanword from the...

     twice a month. The state's code of regulation
    Regulation
    Regulation is administrative legislation that constitutes or constrains rights and allocates responsibilities. It can be distinguished from primary legislation on the one hand and judge-made law on the other...

    s, the Administrative Rules of Montana, is updated quarterly.
  • The Business Services Division registers business entities, trademark
    Trademark
    A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...

    s, assumed business names
    Doing business as
    The phrase "doing business as" is a legal term used in the United States, meaning that the trade name, or fictitious business name, under which the business or operation is conducted and presented to the world is not the legal name of the legal person who actually own it and are responsible for it...

    , and lien
    Lien
    In law, a lien is a form of security interest granted over an item of property to secure the payment of a debt or performance of some other obligation...

    s made under the Uniform Commercial Code
    Uniform Commercial Code
    The Uniform Commercial Code , first published in 1952, is one of a number of uniform acts that have been promulgated in conjunction with efforts to harmonize the law of sales and other commercial transactions in all 50 states within the United States of America.The goal of harmonizing state law is...

     and Federal Food Security Act.
  • The Certification and Notaries Division licenses and trains notaries public
    Notary public
    A notary public in the common law world is a public officer constituted by law to serve the public in non-contentious matters usually concerned with estates, deeds, powers-of-attorney, and foreign and international business...

     and certifies documents.
  • The Elections and Government Services division administers election
    Election
    An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...

    s and voter registration
    Voter registration
    Voter registration is the requirement in some democracies for citizens and residents to check in with some central registry specifically for the purpose of being allowed to vote in elections. An effort to get people to register is known as a voter registration drive.-Centralized/compulsory vs...

    . Campaign finance
    Campaign finance
    Campaign finance refers to all funds that are raised and spent in order to promote candidates, parties or policies in some sort of electoral contest. In modern democracies such funds are not necessarily devoted to election campaigns. Issue campaigns in referendums, party activities and party...

     and lobbying
    Lobbying
    Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or...

     is regulated by a separate agency, the Commissioner of Political Practices.
  • The Records Management Bureau maintains the records of state and local governments.

Other duties

The Secretary is the keeper of the Montana state seal
Seal of Montana
The Great Seal of the State of Montana was adopted in 1865, when Montana was a United States Territory. When it became a state in 1889, it was decided to use the same seal. In 1891, proposals were made to make changes or adopt a brand new seal. None of these proposals passed legislation. The outer...

, and also serves on the Montana Board of Land Commissioners, which administers school trust lands.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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