Tips:
For any filter options that may be too long to display and are cut off by ellipses, use your cursor to hover over the option to view its full text.
If you would like to clear all filter options that you have set, click on the "Clear All" button. This button will remove all filters and reset the session filter to the most recent legislative session.
These filters can be applied from the Search page and from "Edit Settings" in your Bill Lists. To add a search from the Search page to a Bill List, simply click "Add Search to List." Learn more here.
Session
The Session filter allows you to filter for bills based on their legislative session. By default, Abstract selects the current year's regular session and (if applicable) special session.
In this popup window, you are able to select any number of sessions dating back to the 1989-1990 regular session.
If you would like to narrow down your search to regular sessions of your selected session(s), click on the "All Regular" checkbox. The "All Special" checkbox will show all special session bills (indicated with an X; i.e. ABX 1).
Origin
The Origin filter allows you to filter for bills based on its house of origin, Assembly or Senate.
Date
The Date filter allows you to filter bills based on a specific action that has happened to the bill in a time frame that you define. Some of the options for actions include:
Introduced-- The date of the bill's introduction.Bill Version-- Any date when a new version of a bill was published.Cmt. Action-- Any date when a bill was set for hearing, voted on, amended, or referred to a committee.Latest Action-- Any date of the last action of a bill's history.Amended-- Any date where an amendment was made to the bill.Last Vote-- The date of the last vote held on the bill.
Simply toggle the "Introduced" dropdown to select from these actions.
Select a date range, or define the date range on your own terms using the "Custom Range" option.
Author
The Author filter allows you to filter bills based on any legislator that may be associated with the bill, allowing you to define the sponsorship type that you may be looking for.
Some of the author types that you can search for include:
Primary Author-- Single legislators behind the introduction of a bill.Lead Author-- Bills where a legislator is listed as one of the legislators that have introduced it.Coauthor-- Bills where, with the approval of the author, a legislator's name is added as a sign of support.Principal Coauthor-- Bills where a member of either house of origin or the second house is singled out to share credit as a coauthor below the author of a bill.
The search bar at the top of the pop up may be used to search for any active legislator in either house.
Tags
The Tags filter allows you to filter for bills based on Tags that you or anyone in your workspace has created within Abstract.
The Tag Title is the overarching category by which you sort your bills (i.e. Client, Position, Priority, Issue Area). Selecting any of the Tag Title options will yield all bills that are tagged under that Title. For example, for a workspace where AB 1 has an 'ACME' tag applied under the 'Client' tag title, then filtering by the 'Client' tag title will return AB 1 since the tag title for that bill contains the Client Tag 'ACME'
You can select multiple tag titles to see any bills tagged with any of your selected tag titles; a bill only needs to be tagged under one of these tag titles to appear in this search.
Using this logic, you can see every bill tagged in your workspace by simply selecting every tag title in the Tags filter.
Selecting any of the Tag options will return bills where that specific tag has been applied to a bill. For example, for the aforementioned workspace, filtering by 'ACME' will return AB 1 because The 'ACME' tag was applied to it. Selecting more than one Tag will return bills where all selected tags have been applied.
For workspaces with a large number of Tags and/or tag titles, you may use the search bar at the top of the popup window to look for specific Tags and/or tag titles you would like to filter by.
Position
Note: The position filter is currently in early beta, meaning that our coverage of registered opposition and support for all bills is not complete. Abstract is the first to compile this information all in one place!
The Position filter allows you to filter for bills based on an organization's registered support/opposition to any of a bill's versions.
The search bar at the top of the popup window allows you to look for specific organizations.
In order to filter by an organization's position, you must select a stance option from the 'Stances' section.
Type
The Type filter allows you to filter for bills based on the measure type. Checking any of the measure types will return all bills that match your selection.
At the top of the filter's popup window is an option to view 2-year bills. Selecting this option will return bills that we've detected to be two year bills. You can also Hide 2-Year Bills from this filter. Our current classification of two year bills are bills introduced in the first year of session that have been postponed into the second, even numbered year.
Measure Status
The Measure Status filter allows you to filter bills based on a bill's current status. Selecting any of the checkboxes in the popup window will return bills whose current status matches your selection.
Note: The current status of a bill is determined by its classification by LegInfo on the bill status page.
Committee
The Committee Filter allows you to filter bills based on the committee that they are currently in. Selecting any of the options will return bills that are set to be heard, or have been referred to the selected committees.
You may use the search bar at the top of the popup window to look for specific committees that may not show up in the recommended list of committees.
Unreviewed
You can mark bills as reviewed by clicking "Mark Reviewed" on the bill card. By marking bills as reviewed, you exclude them from your search when you use the "Unreviewed" checkbox in Search.
Bills With Alerts
Checking the "Bills with Alerts" checkbox will show you all bills that you have set an Alert for. Learn more about Alerts here.
Gut & Amend
Selecting the "Gut & Amend" checkbox will return bills that have been flagged as gut and amended bills by Abstract's algorithm.
Set for Hearing
Selecting the "Set for Hearing" checkbox will return any bills that have been set for hearing in any committee within the legislature. Learn more about Hearings here.