As you hopefully know, we have lots of great columns for you to pick and choose from so you can show the exact information you need in your bill sheet. Below, a full list of the standard columns. To change the columns you see in your bill sheets simply go to the Manage Bill Templates option in the account menu, and edit one of your existing templates or create a new template.
The list below is in alphabetical order, the same as the columns appear in the template editor.
Action Count
The Action Count is the number of actions that have taken place for the bill, and gives you an indication if the bill is making progress through the legislative process. Different states have different typical actions, so this column is most useful in single state sheets.
Added Date
The date the bill was added to the bill sheet, either manually by you or by us because it became relevant to your query. Can be useful for spotting recent additions as a complement to our daily alert emails.
AI Summary
We send every bill introduced across the U.S. to a friendly AI which produces short, plain English summaries. Every time a new version is introduced, we generate a new summary so it will always be up to date. This is extremely useful and you will almost certainly want to include it particularly when sharing your bill list with others. Read more about AI summaries here.
Bill Name
The Bill Name is how the legislature has listed the bill on their website. You will almost certainly want to include this information on your bill sheet.
Bill Progress
Unlike Last Action, Bill Progress is BillTrack50’s interpretation of where a bill stands in the legislative process. Although the process can be very complicated, we have simplified it to just a few steps:
- Introduced - As it sounds, bill has been introduced (perhaps as a prefile) but has yet to make any progress
- In Committee - it has been assigned to a committee, not necessarily that it has been scheduled to be heard
- Crossed Over - it has passed out of the chamber where it was introduced, and is likely in the other chamber though it might be back depending on the shenanigan level associated with the particular bill. Sometimes call Engrossed by the states
- Passed — both chambers have passed the bill and the bill is awaiting signature by the Governor/President, or in the case of a resolution other approval as appropriate. Sometimes call Enrolled by the states
- Signed / Enacted / Adopted — signed by the Governor/President, or in the case of a resolution other approval as appropriate. Sometimes a bill can become law without the Governor's signature, known as a pocket pass, and we try to capture that as well. We do our best to update bills as signed / Enacted / Adopted as quickly as possible, but we are relying on the state legislature website to update their information. So if the distinction between Passed and Signed / Enacted / Adopted is important to you (like you are deciding if you want to call a Governor) it is a good idea to do further research to double check the status of the bill.
- Dead - A few states tell us when a bill has been officially designated dead, and can no longer move through the process. In those cases, we will mark the bill dead at that point. Otherwise, we mark bills dead a few days after the session they were introduced in has ended, keeping in mind states with two-year sessions.
- Vetoed — If a bill is vetoed by the Governor or President, in those states where a bill not signed by the Governor is automatically vetoed (pocket veto) we will mark it as such.
The Bill Progress also matches up to the graphic on our bill pages.
Bill Summary
Some states (and Congress) give us something nice we can show you as the summary for the bills. Sometimes we can retrieve the summary as part of the metadata describing the bill. Sometimes we can scoop the summary out of the bill text itself. Unfortunately, sometimes we don’t have a good summary and simply provide you the most descriptive bill name we can get as the summary. Depending on which state you are working within, and how good their summaries are, you may or may not want to include the summary on your bill sheet. Note these summaries are not written to us but are exclusively information from the legislatures themselves. You will generally find that the AI summaries that we generate for every bill are easier to read, so depending on your goals and audience, you might want to use those instead.
Bill Type
This let's you know what kind of legislation it is:
- Bill - legislation aimed at creating a new law or amending an existing one. By far the most common legislation type.
- Resolution - legislation which aims to send a message or compel action but often do not have a legislative effect or are of smaller effect such as authorizing small appropriations. They come in different flavors - house or senate, joint (both chambers), or concurrent resolutions (similar to joint but do not have the force of law). Resolutions are also used for internal to the legislature matters, like setting up the rules for a session or declaring a session finished. The legislative process can be different for resolutions, and they often to not need to be signed by the Governor. Fun fact: the U.S. Congress declares war through use of a joint resolution!
- Memorial - legislation which seeks to recognize the importance of a person (usually recently deceased) or organization but will not have a legal effect.
- Other - Anything else. This may include constitutional amendments in some states.
Useful for identifying bill types if you are interested in resolutions or memorials, otherwise you should filter them out on the query tab. You can learn more about bill types with this post.
Committee Categories
We've assigned every committee across the U.S. to one of 11 broad categories, and this column shows the categories of committee that the bill has been sent to. A bill may be in multiple categories. Can be useful for establishing the broad topic of the bill (is it an education or health bill?). Read more about committee categories here.
Created
Created is the date a bill was added to our database. When our processes are running smoothly the created date will be the evening of the day the bill was introduced, or early in the morning the next day. If something has gone awry then all bets are off, but the information will hopefully still be useful to you. We have exposed this created date for you so that you can sort on it to see bills that have been added to the database since last time you had a chance to work on your bill sheet.
Has Companion
This column will be either Yes or No to indicate if there is a companion bill. A companion bill is the same bill introduced in the other chamber, which effectively gives two chances to get the legislation passed and can speed up the process. You can find a link to the companion bill on the summary tab of the bill page. This column will only be useful if you are specifically looking for companions. Read this post for information on which states allow companions.
Introduced Session
The session the bill was introduced in. If you are searching just for current bills you don’t really need this column unless you’d like to make it clear which sessions are two-year sessions. States that have session names with a year, like “2025 General Assembly”, will generally not be able to consider the bill in question in the following year (the secret two-year session state exceptions are HI, NH, OK, WV, WY). States with session name like “2023 - 2024 Regular Session” will continue to be able to consider a bill introduced in the first year of the session in the second year of the session. All states with names without a year, like “86th General Assembly” or “115th Congress” have two-year sessions. (For more than you ever wanted to know on this topic, see this post.)
Keyword List
The Keyword List is extra information not provided by the legislatures. Instead, it is generated by us. The keywords are the most important words in the bill and generally do a pretty good job telling you what a bill is about. There are several ways to use the keywords either to help you write your query or to help you evaluate bills. You may or may not find the keyword column useful for your own use, but you likely won’t want to include this column on public-facing bill sheets or stakeholder pages.
Last Action
The Last Action is the most recent bill status on the legislature website describing the bill. As such the language can be quite technical and can provide excellent detail about the current status of a bill. You will almost certainly want it on your sheet so you can stay up to date on what’s going on with your bill. That said, for public-facing sheets, depending on the sophistication of your audience, you might prefer to use the Bill Progress column (described above).
Last Action Date
The Last Action Date is the date the Last Action occurred. You will likely want to include this date whether you are showing the Last Action or the Bill Progress.
Last Amendment Date
The date of the last amendment introduced on the bill. It is useful for seeing if any bills have been amended since last time you had a chance to look at your bill sheet. Or even more importantly on the hidden tab to see if a bill has been amended since you hid it. See this post about using the last amended date on the hidden tab.
Position Column
The Position Column is the only standard column we include that is meant to be filled in by you. To fill it in simply double-click on the cell you want to fill in and a pop up will appear with your choices for the position. The position column can be used to color code your widget, or pre-populate your scorecard with ratings. When sharing your sheet with others, you will need to give your users at least “comment” level permission for them to be able to enter position information.
Read Count
The Read Count is how many people have clicked on this bill in BillTrack50, since the bill was first introduced. Read Count gives an idea of how much attention a bill has been getting from the general public. This column measures social bling, and is mostly meant for fun.
Sponsor Count
Sponsor Counts to help you quickly ascertain how much support a bill has garnered by adding up the number of sponsors. We decided to allow you to also add this information to your bill sheet so you can sort on it and otherwise use it to inform your research. This column will be most useful if you are searching just one state or just Congress.
Sponsor List
The Sponsor List is simply a list of all of the sponsors and cosponsors for a bill. The sponsor's party is in parentheses after their name. Note, sponsors are listed first and have an * next to their names, followed by an alphabetized list of cosponsors on our bill pages.
StateBill ID
The official Bill Number assigned by the legislature, like HB101 or HR2013 (more details). You’ll nearly always want to include this column as it also serves as the link to the bill.
State Code
Postal abbreviation of the state where the bill was introduced, or US for federal bills. You’ll want to include this column unless you are searching in just one state. In that case, you can decide to include the state code or not for aesthetic and space reasons.
State Link
A URL link to the bill on the relevant state website. States tend to change the way they organize their websites, so while we strive to keep this links accurate you may come across links that don't work, particularly for bills from older sessions.
Tracked Count
The Tracked Count is how many BillTrack50 bill sheets contain this bill. Tracked Count gives an idea of much attention a bill has been getting from other professionals.
Version Count
The Version Count is the number of versions of the bill available. In other words, how many times the bill has been amended and a new bill text posted by the state legislature. Like action count, it can be a way to gauge if a bill has legs.
Vote Count
The Vote Count is how many votes we have on record for this bill. The Vote Count gives an idea if the bill is making progress in the legislative process. However, we only have committee votes where the legislature publishes them, so keep that in mind if you compare vote counts between states. The vote count column can be useful to have visible when you are populating a scorecard.
That’s it for our standard columns. You can also include as many of your own custom columns as you need. Details on how to do that here.