BillTrack50 Help Center

Introduction

In this post we will take a look at how you can manage pre-filed bills using BillTrack50's timeline. If you would prefer to watch a video on this topic, then click here.

If you have any questions after reading this post, then please feel free to reach out to us here.

Why Am I Getting Pre-filed Bills?

Many state legislatures release bills they know will be introduced on the legislature website even before the session officially starts. We refer to such bills as "pre-files". When the year is coming to a close, you may get pre-filed bills added to your bill sheets. If you have a bill sheet set to "current session", or set to session years and you've chosen this year, then we assume you want to see these new bills as soon as possible. (Note new bill sheets are set to "current session" by default, so this is your setting unless you changed it. Also note, we consider pre-files to be in the "introduced" status even though they aren't actually introduced yet.)

How Can I Remove the Pre-filed Bills?

If you don't want to see new session bills mixed in with your current session bills it is fairly easy to remove them.

First, go to a bill sheet's "Query" tab, then scroll down to the filter section. Here you should see something that says "current session" or "session years". If the filter says "current session" then click on "current session" and then select "session years" from the drop down menu. Choosing "session years" will bring up a timeline and only query bills from the time period you select on the timeline.

Now simply click and drag the timeline to not include the new session year. This will remove pre-files from your bill sheet.

Caution! If you remove new session bills, remember you will need to add the new year to the timeline, or switch back to "current session" when the new year starts if you want new bills! You switch back same way; click on "Session Years" and choose "Current Session" instead.

BillTrack50 will not do this for you automatically, so be sure to remember.

What If I Want To See Only the Pre-filed Bills?

Once again, you will want to go to the "Query" tab of the bill sheet you are interested in, and then click on "current session", then select "session years" from the drop down menu (if it is already on "session years" then simply skip this step).

To see only the new session pre-files click and drag the left dot so that only the latest year is selected. Pro tip: If you have have only the current year selected right now you will have to drag the dot backwards at least one year so that you have two dots. Then you can drag the right dot up to the new year and finally the left dot up to the current year.

Once you click "Save" you will be taken back to your bill sheet grid which should only have prefile bills on it. However, you might notice that the bill sheet still has some bills from the previous year on it. There are two possible reasons you are still seeing bills that have been introduced in the current year:

1) Some states have two year sessions, so those bills remain on your bill sheet, as they are still in session and can still move.

2) You added certain bills to your bill sheet manually, either by typing them into the bill number section at the bottom of the query tab, or by using the + or "track bill" button to add bills to this sheet. If that's the case you'll need to remove those bills from the query tab one by one, or use our out of session bills tool to remove them. Either way we recommend taking a snap shot of your sheet first. Detailed directions for snapshots and removing old bills available here.

If you still have questions or concerns, feel free to contact us here.

Cover photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash