5.8 Bill Searching

If you don't know the Bill-id of the legislation you are interested in, you can search by key-word or code section number. The computer will return a list of all bills that contain the key-word you specify. For example, if you specified "gun", you would get a list of all current bills that contain "gun" in the text.
When searching for section numbers, you may only search for numbers that are 3-digits in length or longer. If a section number contains a period, then each side of the period is a different key-word -- you could search for "123" and locate any bills that reference any section numbered 123 (including 123.1, 123.52, etc.). You may wish to review the following:

Bill ID: Information on how bill-ids are constructed and the different types of bills.
Appendix 4. Selecting Keywords for Searches: Instructions on selecting and typing key-words
Legislative Sessions: A description of the different types of legislative sessions.

Searching with WWW

Begin with the Senate home page which is accessible using the URL: http://www.sen.ca.gov/

Select the hypertext phrase Search Bill Text.

You will see options for selecting either or both the CURRENT session and the PRIOR session. You will also see options for selecting any or all of various types of bill text, including Introduced, Amended, Current, Enrolled, Chaptered, and Proposed. Next you will find a blank into which you may type your keyword(s).

After typing your keyword(s), select the option Search for Bill Text to start the search process. You will receive back a summary of the number of bills that matched your search followed by a list of bills from which to select.

If you select one of the bills listed, you will see a list of the documents for that bill, followed by a digest of the bill taken from the current version, and a place to subscribe to the bill, if you wish to do that.

Next, you will see a pre-set-up search for bills similar to the one selected followed by pre-set-up search for other bills by the same author as the bill selected.

Searching with Gopher

"Point" your Gopher to: 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./

You should see a menu of options similar to:

 
      1.  Access bill text, analyses, codes, etc. by name/    
      2.  Overview, Types of Files, How to Read Bills, etc.
 
                  SEARCHING BILLS          
      5.  1993-1994 Extraordinary Session Defined
      6.  Search full text of all bills in current (1995/1996) session             7.  Search full text of all bills in prior (1993/1994) session      
      8.  Search full text of all bills in both sessions     
      9.  How to Specify a Search Query      
      10. About bill search options

                  LISTS OF BILLS SORTED BY BILL NUMBER     
      13. Type in a Bill-ID (e.g. SB_1234) for list from 1995..1996 session        14. Type in a Bill-ID (e.g. SB_1234) for list from 1993..1994 session        15. Type in a Bill-ID (e.g. SB_1234) for list from  both sessions

Indexes to Bills:

To locate and browse indexes to bills, Select Access bill text, analyses, codes, etc. by name/. Then, Select Bills of the California State Legislature/ You should then see a menu similar to the following:

      1.    Description of Regular and Extended Session
      2.   Index to 1995-06 Assembly Bills by Author [11-Apr-1995]
      3.   Index to 1995-96 Assembly Bills by Bill Number [11-Apr-1995]
      4.   Index to 1995-96 Senate Bills  by Bill Number [11-Apr-1995]
      5.   Index to 1995-96 Senate Bills By Author [11-Apr-1995]
      6.  Bills from Current (95-96) Session/            
      7.  Bills from Current 1st Extraordinary Session (95-96)/          
      8.  Bills from Current 2nd Extraordinary Session (95-96)/
      9.  Bills from Prior (93-94) Session/                      
      10. Bills from Prior 1st Extraordinary Session (93-94)/
      11. Index to 1993-94 Assembly Bills by Author
      12. Index to 1993-94 Assembly Bills by Bill Number                  
      13. Index to 1993-94 Senate Bills by Author
      14. Index to 1993-94 Senate Bills by Bill Number

The "indexes" selectable from the above menu are lists of bills identifying the Author, Short title, and Bill-id for each bill. Bills are indexed according to the house (Assembly or Senate) where they are introduced, and there are separate lists ordered by Author and by Bill-id.

After reviewing an index, if you find a bill that interests you, record the bill-d. Then you may select one of the menu items beginning "Bills from...." or you may go back to the previous menu and select one of the menu items beginning "Type in a Bill-ID...."

Select a Particular Bill-id

The menu items that begin "Type in a Bill-ID...." will prompt you to type the bill-id of a bill. Having done that, you well see a menu of documents that are available for that bill-id.

Search by Keyword

The menu items that begin "Search Full Text...." will prompt you to enter a keyword. The keyword should be a word that is likely to be found in the bill(s) that interest you, and not likely to be found in a lot of other bills. For example: "gun" is a good keyword for certain types of bills but "law" is not a good keyword since it is in too many different types of bills.

The Gopher search is limited to searching the text of the current version of bills.

Searching with E-Mail

Searching by e-mail may involve several successive e-mail messages. Similar to the Gopher search, this search is limited to searching the text of the current version of bills. A further limitation is that the search is performed only on the current session -- you cannot use the e-mail search to search the archives of the prior legislative session. Following is illustrated the common steps in searching by e-mail -- we will use the keyword "gun" as an example:

Find a List of bills

Send an e-mail message as follows

Send Mail To: Senate-News@sen.ca.gov
     Subject: doesn't matter
        Text: billtopic gun

You should get back e-mail similar to the following:

From:   Senate-News-Reply@SEN.CA.GOV
To:     JSmith@ABC.COM
CC:
Subj:   test

Senate-News Server version 2.2 (950202/jms)

Job 20A44089 Relating to Request Received 11-APR-1995 11:41:54.47:
 From:     DMiller@SEN.CA.GOV
 Subject: test

  (For help, send the command HELP.)

============================================================
(0001) billtopic gun
       BILLTOPIC "gun"

Search of Bill Text -- keyword(s)= gun  11-APR-1995 11:41:56.13

=========================================================================
Bill Keyword Search Warning!

The Bill Keyword searches are based only on the most current version of
each bill.  If the keyword you are looking for only appears in analysis
of the bill, or does not appear in the most current version of the
bill, then this search will not find it. 

However, if you are generally familiar with the bills, you may be
able to use this facility to create a "reminder" list of bills.
=========================================================================

AB 53 Security services.
AB 70 Firearms:  curios or relics.
AB 92 Firearms.
AB 279 Weapons:  school buses.
AB 577 Firearms: trigger locks.
AB 624 Schools:  gun-free school zones.
AB 630 Firearms:  access: minors.
AB 798 Firearms: educational brochure for gun owners.
AB 830 Tear gas weapons.
AB 892 Firearms.
AB 893 Probation: ineligibility.
AB 1222 Weapons:  dirk or dagger.
AB 1908 Weapons:  stun guns.
AJR 18 Semiautomatic assault weapons.
SB 23 Restricted weapons:  firearms.
SB 141 Limited liability companies:  professional service
SB 357 Firearms:  ammunition:  possession: sale.
SB 557 Firearms.
SB 671 Firearms: dealers' record of sale.
SB 693 Weapons.
SB 933 Firearms.
SB 975 Maintenance of the Codes.
SB 985 Firearms: pawnshop:  background check.
SCR 19 Family values: entertainment industry.

======================================================
To obtain a list of documents available for one of the
above listed bills,  send mail to SENATE-NEWS with the
DIR BILL request.  For example, to obtain the list of
documents available for Senate Bill 12, your request

DIR BILL SB_12

For bills which are from the prior session (93-94),
prefix the bill name with the letter P to get the
correct bill. For example, to get AB 1624 from the
1993-1994 session, your request would be:

DIR BILL PAB_1624
======================================================

Get a List of Documents

Scanning the list of bills for a topic, you may see one that interests you. If so, the next step is to send e-mail to get a list of documents that are available for the selected bill. You may skip this step if you already know the filenames of the documents you wish to retrieve:

Send Mail To: Senate-News@sen.ca.gov
     Subject:  doesn't matter
        Text:  dir bill sb_23

You should get back e-mail similar to the following:

From:   Senate-News-Reply@SEN.CA.GOV
To:     JSmith@ABC.COM
CC:
Subj:   test

Senate-News Server version 2.2 (950202/jms)
 
Job 20A45E03 Relating to Request Received 11-APR-1995 11:58:09.14:
 
  (For help, send the command HELP.)
 
============================================================
(0001) dir bill sb_23
       INFO DIR bill sb_23
 
Files available for bill sb_23

Filename       Size   Description
---------------------------------------------------------
CURRVER.TXT  108.5K  Text, SB 23, Current Amended 1995-03-22 (Text)  
HISTORY.TXT    3.5K  History, SB 23, as of 1995-03-30 (Text)
INTROVER.TXT  66.5K  Text, SB 23, Introduced 1994-12-07 (Text)  
SACCRIMP.TXT   7.0K  Analysis, SB 23, Sen. Crim. Pro. committee as of 1995-03-
STATUS.TXT     3.5K  Status, SB 23, as of 1995-03-30 (Text)
SVCCRIMP.TXT   3.5K  Vote, SB 23, Sen. Crim. Pro. committee as of 1995-03-28 (
T941207.TXT   66.5K  Text, SB 23, Introduced 1994-12-07 (Text)  
T950206.TXT  101.5K  Text, SB 23, Current Amended 1995-02-06 (Text)  
T950322.TXT  108.5K  Text, SB 23, Current Amended 1995-03-22 (Text)  

9 files found.

Select A Bill Document

The next step is to send-email to retrieve one or more bill documents. That is done with reference to the filenames in the above report. As you can see, some of the filenames are always the same and can be selected with having to request the directory of filenames -- if you are after those documents, you can skip last step which simply lists the filenames. To request specific documents do the following:


Send Mail To: Senate-News@sen.ca.gov
     Subject:  doesn/t matter
        Text: get bill sb_23 currver.txt
        Text: get bill sb_23 history.txt

You will receive by return e-mail each of the selected documents.

Send Comments or Questions by E-mail to: News.Editor@sen.ca.gov