How to Report on a State Bill
States Newsroom reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris explains how to track down a piece of state legislation.
As a reproductive rights reporter for States Newsroom, Kelcie Moseley-Morris has researched her share of state bills.
It can be a frustrating task. State legislatures all have different websites, and similar bills are often filed in the same session.
Other news outlets rarely give the bill number and only occasionally mention the sponsor, making it even harder to track down.
Here’s Moseley-Morris’ advice on reporting on state legislation.
How do you find a state bill?
Finding legislation on government websites can be a bit of a treasure hunt. One of the most useful pieces of information to start with is a date. If you know approximately when a bill was introduced or heard in committee, you can start to narrow down where you might find it. Particularly if it’s under consideration during a current legislative session, it should be relatively easy to find, as long as you know the subject matter.
Sometimes it’s easiest to start with a Google search to see what comes up — that can be quicker than trying to navigate an unfamiliar legislative website. Typing in a few key words can sometimes lead you straight to the bill text on the government page. Just be careful to make sure it’s coming straight from the legislative source when you’re reporting.
Every state’s legislative website is different. Some are relatively simple, while others are opaque and difficult to understand. Look for key headers on the websites, including areas where bills might be grouped by subject or by legislative session year. Often it’s just a process of narrowing down your options until you find what you need.
For instance, in my experience, the state of Idaho has one of the easiest legislative sites to navigate. The front page has groupings for the sessions, the committees, and information about the legislators themselves. First you’d click on “Legislative Sessions,” and the most recent session will be on that page, with a drop-down menu if you’re looking for past sessions. From there, the “Bill Center” is where you’d find specific legislation, including the full bill text and its journey through the legislative process. Or you can click on “Calendars and Agendas” if you’re trying to hunt down a bill in a certain committee before it comes up for a hearing.
Lastly, if you’re having a lot of trouble, don’t hesitate to call the government office directly and ask for help finding what you need. Even the smallest states typically have a legislative services team that is more than happy to help point you in the right direction.
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How can you make sure the bill you've found is the right one?
Dates are again your first line of defense here. Make sure first that you’re looking at the right legislative session, and then when you think you’ve found the one, see where it was last updated in the legislative process. If it stopped at the introduction stage and hasn’t moved in weeks or months, then that probably isn’t it. Pieces of legislation usually move through many steps before becoming law, including hearings in both the House and Senate plus floor debates and votes, so look for those details. You can also check the full bill text for key aspects of the legislation you’re looking for if there were several versions that were considered.
Another tactic I’ve used is with a website called LegiScan, which offers free account registration and allows you to search all of the legislation in all 50 states. This is a good tool for cross-referencing with official government websites, and can sometimes help you navigate to the right bill number faster. It stays fairly up to date, in my experience, so it can be really helpful, especially for the states that don’t have a robust legislative website. It also includes details about what stage a bill is in and who the co-sponsors are, along with links to the official sources.
And again, if you’re having trouble figuring it out or you feel unsure of yourself, give the legislative offices a call.
What should you look for when reading a state bill?
Pieces of legislation, especially controversial ones, are often not new ideas. It’s always worth doing a few searches with the same general terminology from the bill you’re looking at to see if similar versions of the law have been introduced or passed in other states. This can give you clues about what organizations or special interests might be involved in drafting and/or lobbying for the bill, and give you potential sources for interviews. It can also help you form questions for interviews about your bill, if a similar idea met with a lot of resistance or court battles in another state, or it had an unintended outcome that could crop up again if it passes in your state.
If the legislation seems familiar, it’s also worth taking a few key passages from the bill and doing an exact search in Google to see if it’s a piece of model legislation — this is usually from an organization like the American Legislative Exchange Council, also known as ALEC, which has a whole searchable archive of model legislation.
How do you know whether a state bill is likely to pass?
A bill has many steps in the process before it can become a law, and generally, if it has cleared a significant number of those hurdles, it’s more likely to pass. While state processes differ, it usually has to be referred to a House committee first, then receive a hearing (which is not a guarantee), make it out of committee and onto the floor to receive a full vote (also not a guarantee), then go through the same procedure again on the Senate side. And all of that could be complicated by amendments that have to be agreed to by both chambers, or the bill could be reintroduced entirely and start the whole process over. But if it seems to be flying through the process quickly, or it’s passing by wide margins, it has a higher likelihood of becoming law.
But it’s just as important to remember not to assume or imply in your reporting that it will become law just because of those factors either. Sometimes the House will overwhelmingly pass a bill, and it gets little support in the Senate, or vice versa. Politics is a fickle beast, and a bill can quickly die based on any number of developments (including those that occur behind closed doors), even if it initially had strong support.
What should you do next after reading a state bill?
First, decide what is the most important aspect of the bill that the public should know. Is it the price tag? The people it will affect? The constitutionality? The ability to enforce it? Then think about how to explain what it does to the average person without using a bunch of legislative jargon, and what kinds of questions someone would have about it if they knew nothing about state government. Then take those questions to the people you want to interview, such as the bill’s sponsor or cosponsors, any advocacy group leaders who might be for or against it, and any government sources who might have an interest in it, especially from a fiscal or enforcement perspective.
Don’t just tell your readers what the bill says, tell them what it would mean for their state, their communities, their neighbors and friends, in a simple and understandable way. Your job is to be a translation bridge between lawmakers and citizens — don’t just quote the bill text.
Any other tips for covering state legislation?
For heaven’s sake, include a link to the bill text, or I will personally hunt you down and make you put it in there. And always tell people where the bill stands in the process and how close it is to becoming law. Too often, an article about a bill ends without any clarity on whether it’s close to passage or still has a long way to go. And let people know how they can be involved, whether it’s through public testimony or just watching the hearing on public television. Help make it easy for people to be involved in the crafting of the laws they will have to live with.