Although Hawaii and Oklahoma both have 2 year sessions, and bills introduced in 2019 can be carried over to 2020, we don’t treat these bills like we do other biennium states. The state legislature website for both HI, and OK create new pages for the bills in 2020, so we have to treat the carried over bills as “new”. This is not good news and it pains us deeply to have to offer these tips. The same is kind of true for New Hampshire too; except in that case only some are carried over, not substantially all bills like for HI and OK.
First, the new and old versions of the bills are fairly easy to identify. The “old” version will say 2019 Regular Session and the “new” version will say 2020 Regular session. You can see that on the summary tab of the bill detail, and/or you can temporarily turn on the Introduced Session column on your template (see this post for instructions on that). Also the “new” version will have a larger bill number, and the “new” version will have a companion bill link back to the old version.
The “old” version of the bill is essentially dead and the data on it will not change. Any new actions, versions, votes, or status changes will only be reflected on the “new” version of the bill. If you change your timeline to search for 2020 only the “old” versions will all drop out so you won’t see the duplicates unless you keep 2019 bills in your query.
NH offers an additional clue, odd year bills will be HB1-HB999 & SB1-SB499, even year will be HB1000-HB1999 & SB500-SB999. So if a < 1000 HB or <500 SB comes into your sheet in 2020 you’ve probably seen it before. Use the list button to see if you hid it before or use the magnifying glass filter to find and copy over your comments from the old version of the bill.
WARNINGS
- If you have hidden HI or OK bills on bill sheets based on keywords, those hidden bills are going to come back in their 2020 “new” version, and you are going to need to hide them again.
- If you have any notes on HI or OK bills, like position, comments, or other information you are going to need to copy that information onto the “new” version before you get rid of the old version by switching to 2020 only or by x-ing out the old version. I am so so sorry I know that’s a hassle. You’ll need to do the same for NH bills that get reintroduced too.
- If you had added any HI or OK or NH bills by bill number (either by typing in numbers, the list button, or the track button), you’ll need to add the “new” version and drop the old version. You can just type the bill numbers into the bill number box to add the “new” versions or you can use quick search. (other hints for adding lists of bills). If you can’t find the NH bill then it didn’t carry over and is effectively dead.
- If you have an OK or NH scorecard, new votes will not be added to the “old” bills on your scorecard. You’ll basically need to start over with a new scorecard and add the “new” version of your bills and then score them again and copy and paste any comments over to the new scorecard. 🙁
You don’t need to worry about bills that aren’t going to change like dead bills or bills that are already signed — for those you might as well leave the “old” version in your bill sheet. If you have a large number of bills and sorting any of these items out is a significant issue for you, reach out to me and we can set up a time to discuss and then I can make your needed changes for you in the database.
I’m sorry! Good luck! Let me know if I can help!
Hawaii Photo by Matthew Brodeur on Unsplash Oklahoma Photo by Debra Gauthier on Unsplash