Welcome to BillTrack50!
Congratulations on your excellent decision to sign up for our free account, which gives you access to our bill, legislator and committee search tools in the current session. You also have access to AI Assist - AI generated plain English summaries of bills and AI-powered similar bills searching.
Make a free account
Click on our “Sign Up” button from the BillTrack50 homepage. From there, you’ll be able to register to create an account.
Make your first search
Once you create a new account, the first screen you are taken to is the Bill Search screen. From the Bill Search screen, you can create your first search. This video walks you through creating a search, working with the results grid, reading bills, and searching for legislators. You can also search for committees as well. The instructions below cover the same topics.
Note: Bill and legislator searches on a free user account are limited to the current session. For historical data, more advanced search options, saved searches, collaboration, and much more – consider a 30-day free trial of BillTrack50 Pro or talk to a BillTrack50 expert. To upgrade to a free trial, be logged in and simply click on “Start a Free Trial”.
Search Basics
- Simply enter your search term(s), like marijuana.
- Exact phrases should have quotes like “Minimum Wage”
- To get all endings, use * as a wildcard, like Agricultur* (would return matches for Agriculture as well as Agricultural)
- Enter the bill numbers with no space between the letters and numbers, like HB101 (learn about How States Format Bill Numbers) here
- Limit by state or choose “United States” for federal bills (Congress)
Using Multiple Search Terms
Notice the “Contains All” next to the search box is a drop-down, allowing you to choose what kind of search you want. You have three choices in the “Contains All” drop-down. You can choose:
- Contains All: All words or phrases listed in this box must appear
- Contains Near: All words must appear, but they also must be near each other (+/- about 10 words, in the same sentence or so)
- Contains Any: At least one of the words or phrases in this box must appear
Working with the Results Grid
- To sort the columns, you can click on the columns. Sorting the action date column helps to quickly show you the most recent actions. If you hold down shift, you can sort by multiple columns at a time.
- You can filter as well if you hover over the name of the field, the filter for the column will appear and you can filter to find your desired results
- Grouping and subgrouping by column type allow for further analysis
- Click the magic wand Similar button at the bottom of the sheet to see an AI-generated list of similar bills that aren't in your bill sheet, which you can them easily add.
Reading a Bill
Click on a bill number from your results grid. Notice the tabs for summary, reviewing the bill text, actions, votes, documents, committees and an AI-generated list of similar bills. Underlined text is being added to existing law, the crossed-out text is being removed. While reviewing the bill, notice that there are opportunities to click on legislator profiles from sponsors, or on the votes tab you can access legislator profiles from there as well.
Looking up a Legislator
Notice there is also a legislator search available to look up current legislators. Limit to a specific state or “United States” to look for people in Congress. Clicking on a legislator’s name will take you to our legislator page offering a wealth of details. Note that legislator staff information is only available to paid subscribers.
Looking up a Committee
Notice there is also a committee search available to look up committees. You can limit to a specific state or “United States” to look for Congressional committees. Enter a keyword for a committee name (ie, education) or enter the full name if you know it (ie, House Committee on Education). Clicking on a committee’s name will offer you a wealth of details about the committee and its members. Note that committee staff information is only available to paid subscribers.
Resources to Help
We have a Help Center with dozens of videos and guides for all aspects of using BillTrack50. For announcements of new features and our webinar schedule sign up for our newsletter here. For a one on one demo or training session book time on our calendar here.