HOW TO OBTAIN BILL INFORMATION
By Jose Borrajero
When seeking detailed information on any legislative bill, the first thing to do is to access the legislature’s main bill information page. This is done by clicking on the bill number (if it is a hyperlink) or by going to the main page of www.AZLEG.gov and entering the bill number where indicated. The page that appears contains 6 menu items as follows:
Overview: Lots of information here, but generally we are only interested on how the votes went, by clicking on “Standing Details” for standing committee votes, or “Show THIRD” for third reading or final votes.
Bill Status: A more detailed way of finding out how the votes went and how members voted. It also includes every step that the bill has gone through. Note that this is specific to House or Senate action. One must choose which.
Videos: All hearings are videotaped. Here is where we access the videos. Most are extremely boring, but some are quite lively.
Sponsor/Keyword/Sections: Most useful info here is the list of sponsors/supporters. The rest of the info is seldom used by us citizens.
RTS Current Bill Positions: List of individuals and/or organizations that expressed a vote via the Request to Speak System. This is very useful in determining who is in favor of or against the bill. Also useful as a tool to see how we are doing as against the opposition.
Documents: Includes the full text of all the bill versions and all the summaries. Some times bills are amended substantially along the way, leading to an end product quite different from the original. For this reason it is usually best to pay more attention to the latest versions of both the bill text and/or the summary.
Have fun!