Lens on the Legislature: Monitoring Specific Legislation

This week's focus is on monitoring the individual items that go through the legislative process. The principal ones are:

• House Bills (HB's) and Senate Bills (SB's)
• Resolutions (HR's and SR's)
• Concurrent Resolutions (HCR's and SCR's)
• Joint Resolutions (HJR's and SJR's)

The definitions for these documents can be found in the Legislative Glossary that is on the Legislature's Web site.

The Legislative Council provides staff support for the legislature such as attorneys who help legislators draft bills and information technology (IT) professionals who develop and maintain legislative systems. The Council's IT staff has programmed a number of links on the Legislature's Web site to enable the public to follow legislation through the process. Here are some that are frequently useful:

• By number (e.g., HB123, SCR5)
• By author (e.g., Senator Duncan, Representative Pitts)
• By co-author
• By committee (e.g., House Appropriations, Senate Finance)
• By co-sponsor (A legislator in the opposite chamber who guides the bill or resolution through the process in that chamber)
• By affected law (e.g. Government Code Chapter 2055)
• By filing date (Handy if you are keeping up with bills as filed each day)
• By subject (from a list of subjects)
• By keywords (text search)

A future Lens on the Legislature will discuss the legislative process and some of the specific terms you will see when using the above links, e.g. enrolled version, engrossed version.