LAWS ADVANCED BILL SEARCH CATEGORY DESCRIPTIONS

Requesters:    The legislator or legislative committee that has officially 
requested the bill draft.  All bill drafts must have one requester.

By Request Of:  The designation that is given to an agency, board, committee, 
or other organization that is promoting a bill.  A bill may or may not have a 
"By Request Of" promoter.

Primary Sponsor:  The legislator who introduces a bill into the legislative 
process is said to be the primary sponsor of that bill.  All introduced bills 
have one Primary Sponsor. 

Drafter:  A Legislative Services Division employee who composes a bill draft 
for potential introduction.  All bills have one assigned Drafter.  Drafters 
also compose amendments to introduced bill during the legislative process.

Subject Description:  An identifying attribute for a bill that is assigned by 
Legislative Services Division personnel.  All bills have one or more Subject 
Descriptions, and these can be changed (added or removed) during a bill's life 
if the bill is amended.

Committee Name:  The name of the legislative committee where a bill currently 
resides.  Selecting one or more committees for this option on the Advanced Bill 
Search screen will result in a listing of bills that are currently in the 
selected committees.  A bill is typically "in committee" from the time it is 
referred to a committee until the time it is reported out of that committee.  
An "S" before the committee name indicates a Senate committee, an "H" indicates 
a House of Representatives committee.

Current Bill Progress: A method of identifying how far along a bill is in the 
process of becoming law.  There are about 20  "Current Bill Progress" categories 
available for use.   All bills start out as bill drafts which corresponds to the 
"In Drafting Process" category.   The current status of a bill determines the 
bill's current bill progress category.   Only bills CURRENTLY in the selected
"Current Bill Progress" category will be returned with this search.  A user must 
be familiar with the legislative process to make effective use of this search 
option.

Current Bill Status:  This is a brief description denoting the latest significant 
legislative activity that has occurred to a bill.  A bill's current bill status 
also determines the bill's progress category in the legislative process.   There 
are about 150 potential "Current Bill Status" descriptions that can occur to a 
bill in both the House and Senate.  A "Current Bill Status" description is a 
subset of the "Bill Actions" description list (see below).  Note that there are 
about 20 "Bill Action" descriptions in both the House and Senate, such as "(H) 
Fiscal Note Requested" that do not determine the bill's progress in the 
legislative process, and will not display in the "Current Bill Status" search 
list.  A "C" preceding the status indicates a Legislative Council related 
activity, an "S" a Senate activity, and an "H" a House activity.

Bill Action: A list of all of the possible activity on a bill from its original 
request until it either becomes law or fails somewhere in the legislative process.  
When used in conjunction with the date entry fields, this search will return all 
bills that had the selected Action (activity) occur within the time frame 
specified by the date entries.  A "C" preceding the status indicates a Legislative 
Council related activity, an "S" a Senate activity, and an "H" a House activity.