5.4 Accessing the Analyses of a Bill

You may access the analyses of any Senate or Assembly bill that is before the legislature, or that was before the legislature in the last session.

The Bill Analysis is a report prepared separately for each bill, identifying the significant points and effects of the bill and organizations which support or oppose the bill.

The Committee Analyses of a Billis prepared by policy committee staff for use in committee hearings. Those analyses are distributed in printed form at committee hearings. Following committee hearings they are posted for public access over the Internet. Many analyses are not completed until the evening before a hearing and are not available for distribution before the start of hearings.

The Floor Analysis of a Bill is prepared by the Floor Analysis Office (in the Senate) for reference when a bill is voted on during a floor session. Many analyses are not completed until the evening before a floor session (when the daily file is very long, some are not completed until after the floor session has begun) and are not available for distribution before the start of the floor session. Following a floor session they are posted for public access over the Internet.

Accessing The Documents

WWW (World Wide Web)

Direct your Web Browser to: URL: http:://www.sen.ca.gov/

Select: Search Bill Text

Then uner "Search by Bill Number" enter the bill_id in the blank labelled "Enter the bill number to search for ", and then click on "Search for Bill Number".

Gopher

"Point" your Gopher to: Gopher gopher.sen.ca.gov

If your Gopher does not have an option to point it to particular domain references, then locate the gopher menu option "Gopher Jewels" (Nearly every Gopher is set up to reference "Gopher Jewels" by some means). Then follow the gopher menus via "Government" and "State Government" to "California Legislature Gopher".

From the Senate Root Menu,

Select: Access bill text, analyses, codes, etc./

Then Select: Type in a Bill-ID (e.g. SB_1234) for list from 1995..1996 session

OR Select: Type in a Bill-ID (e.g. SB_1234) for list from 1993..1994 session

You will be promted to type in a billid. Just type in the bill-id as described in the section above entitled "Bill ID", however, it is not necessary to include the bill-type suffix denoting an extraordinary session

Example: SB 1

The result is an acknowledment menu similar to:

1. Senate bill 1 (current session)/

2. Senate bill 1 (95/96 extraordinary session 1)/

3. Senate bill 1 (95/96 extraordinary session 2)/