5.5 Accessing Vote Reports

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

The Vote Report is a report prepared separately for each vote-action taken on a bill, identifying the motion that was voted and which legislators voted "aye", which voted "no" and which did not vote.

The Committee Vote on a Billis prepared by policy committee staff forllowing the completion of a committee hearing in which a vote was taken. Those reports are generally available the next day after a committee hearing -- however, before they can be released, they have to be certified by the committee chairman -- thus, if the chairman is not available the next day the release of the committee vote may be delayed.

The Floor Vote ona Bill is prepared automatically by the voting equipment . The Floor Vote on a bill is generally available to the Internet by the next day. However, unofficial vote reports for votes on the Senate floor are accessible in a special area within minutes of completion of a vote. Official vote reports are not released until they are certified by the Secretary of the Senate, and will not be accessible to the Internet until the next day.

A bill may have more than one vote taken during a floor session. There may be votes to adopt an urgency clause, to waive rules, to remove a vote from a committee, to pass (or fail to pass) a bill, to grant reconsideration, etc. All Senate Floor votes are accessible as un-official vote reports. Only the pas/fail vote is stored (the next day) under the billid.

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)/