Up to Date Information about Legislative Developments is Only a Few Clicks Away

Up to Date Information about Legislative Developments is Only a Few Clicks Away

(11/16/04) Town and village officials who want to stay on top of the status of TABOR, tax freeze proposals and other issues will find a wealth of information on the Wheeler Report and WisPolitics. Both are good on-line resources you can use to stay on top of developments in Madison.

The State Legislature's website is another invaluable source of information of interest to town officials. The site includes a simple tool to request the text and history of all proposed legislation. For example, by entering 2003 Assembly Bill 136, you will be linked to the "history" of that bill.

Overview: The history includes the bill's "relating clause," which offers a very brief overview of the bill's intent -- in the case of AB 136 it reads "relating to: the powers of certain towns and authorizing the creation of charter towns by certain town boards."

Link to Bill Text: A link to the bill’s text can be found in the upper left corner of the bill history page. In this case it reads ASSEMBLY BILL 136. Clicking on that will link you directly to the full text of the bill, just as it looks in its printed form. In addition to the actual statutory language, this includes the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) “analysis,” which offers a concise and authoritative summary of the bill. LRB is the legislative staff agency that drafts most legislation. Some bill histories also include links to a "LC Amendment Memo." These memoranda, prepared by the Legislative Council (LC), another legislative staff agency, summarize major amendments. LC attorneys typically staff legislative committees and assist in the analysis and, sometimes, amendment of bills.

Amendments and Executive Action: What follows is a day-by-day description of every legislative action taken affecting the bill, starting with the date of introduction (including a list of sponsors). This listing includes the introduction of amendments (links to the text of all amendments are embedded in the history – but even though they are a different color and underlined they are easy to miss).

The history records which committee(s) the bill has been referred to, the date of public hearings and any executive action taken by committee(s) on the bill, including vote totals. For example, the history for AB 136 shows that it was referred to the Assembly Committee on Rural Affairs, where it was the subject of a public hearing on April 10, 2003.

It then shows that the committee took three votes in executive session on May 20, 2003 affecting AB 136. First they recommended adoption of a simple amendment (AA2) to a substitute amendment (ASA 1) to the original bill by a vote of 9-0. Next, the committee voted 7-2 to recommend adoption of ASA 1. Substitute amendments are sometimes offered to replace the language of the entire original bill. This can be either a "friendly" or an "unfriendly" attempt to alter the text of the bill. In this case, the author of the substitute language was Rep. Carol Owens, who was also the author of the original bill. This suggests that ASA 1 was a "friendly" amendment. Usually bill sponsors use substitute amendments to achieve broader support for the proposal or to resolve technical problems identified after the original bill's introduction.

Finally, the AB 136 history shows that the Rural Affairs Committee recommended adoption of the bill, as amended, by a vote of 6 - 3. The bill has been referred to the Assembly Rules Committee. This committee is composed of the Assembly's top leadership. The fact that AB 136 is before that committee means that it could be either: (1) referred to another committee for further deliberation, (2) referred to the floor for action or (3) simply held in committee, where it would die upon adjournment.

Obviously, this history includes only the bare bones of what happened to the bill. To learn more, it is often wise to contact the bill’s sponsor or, in the case of bills supported by WTA, the WTA office, for more information about the bill's fate. When bills are scheduled for floor action, you can follow along on-line by using the Legislature’s InSession service -- one for the Senate and another for the Assembly. The Senate offers only audio coverage, the Assembly offers live video as well, with links from the InSession page. The InSession pages also list the day's calendar and links to bills before the house and to roll call votes as they occur. Access to legislators’ home pages, bills, bill histories, InSession, legislative staff agencies and other information can be found on the main Legislative web site.