The following information is intended for general information only and was prepared for Alena Wolotira & Maya Swanes' Low Bono Legal Research course.
With all of the various activities that take place in the Washington legislature to get a bill passed into law, which of the documents produced from these activities is helpful to a researcher in determining the legislature's intent in passing the bill?
| Step in the Legislative Process | Description of the Step | Types of Documents that Exist as a Result of this Step and Where to Find Them | In What Way Can These Types of Documents be Useful to a Legal Researcher? | How Persuasive Is this Document Likely to Be When Trying to Prove the Intent of the Legislature in Passing this Law? |
| Origin Story of the Bill |
Bills originate from many different places but must be introduced by a current legislator. Perhaps a single constituent had an idea and convinced a legislator to sponsor it or perhaps the legislator introduced the bill to solve a problem she sees for her district. |
News stories: local and state newspapers Legislator's sponsoring statements, as posted on the party website. |
Very useful for understanding why the bill came about. Especially if it took the bill's topic a number of years to get passed, news stories and press releases will tell a more broad story than just what is included in the legislative history of the final successful bill. | Not persuasive because most of these origin stories reflect only the will of the individual sponsoring legislator(s) and any constituents they introduce the bill to help. |
| Bill as Filed or Pre-Filed | Every bill has an initial draft, which is typically put in the "hopper" by a sponsoring legislator. |
Depends on when in the legislative cycle you are looking. If it's legislation from a previous session, look to the bill's information page on the Washington State Legislature's website. Select the biennium first, then look for the bill number. Or, use the topical index to find the bill by topic. Bills from before 1991 are available in print at Gallagher. If it's December, look at the State Legislature's Prefiled Bills page, which comprises all of the legislation that has been introduced in anticipation of the coming legislative session. If the legislature is currently in session, the Bill Information Page for the current biennium to either look up the bill by number or use the Topical Index for this biennium.
|
Changes throughout the legislative process reflect legislative intent. Helpful to see how legislation started to track its evolution. | Only persuasive if the meaning of the language you're looking to resolve appears in both the original bill and the version of the bill that was finally passed.* |
| Versions of similar, unenacted bills, from previous sessions | It can be really challenging to pass even popular legislation in one session. Depending on the vagaries of what is going on with the budget, other pending legislation, and many other reasons. Thus, lots of legislation that eventually gets passed originated during previous sessions of the same legislature. |
Sometimes but not frequently, the most recent version of the legislation on the State Legislature's page will include a link to previous versions from previous sessions. Occasionally, the supporting documentation to a bill (such as committee reports, hearings, etc.) will include references to similar legislation introduced in previous sessions. More frequently, a researcher will need to use the Topical Index and browse by topic and biennium to see if legislation on the same topic was previously introduced, and then check the older legislative documents to determine the extent to which they match the most current version. |
Prior versions may have different language. Changes to this language could reflect legislative intent Committee reporting, fiscal statements, or hearings could have taken place for previous versions and not repeated for later versions, even if the later version was the one that was successfully passed. |
See above.* |
| First reading of the bill | Each bill, after it's introduced, gets "read" on the floor of the chamber where it originated. The only action taken at this step is committee assignment, which is decided by the leader of that chamber. | The House and Senate Journals will typically include an entry for this first "reading", which typically only requires for the title of the bill to be read aloud. | Not terribly useful. EXCEPT—this is where you get the text of the legislation as originally drafted. Can be hard to find otherwise. |
Does nothing for legislative intent—just a procedural step to kick to committee for the first real vote. Same logic as above holds true--only illustrative of legislative intent if the original bill language matches the language in the final enacted version that's in the session law.
|
| Fiscal Notes & Bill Analysis | As a bill makes its way to standing committee, legislative staff perform various analyses of the bill for the committee's use, accounting for RCW placement, the impact of the proposed legislation on current statutory law, and a fiscal statement if necessary. |
Fiscal Notes: found under the "Fiscal Note" line on each bill's page, account for the fiscal impact of the legislation, where the source of any funding would need to come from, and whether new rulemaking would be required should the bill pass. Bill Analyses are typically the first document listed under "Bill Reports" on a bill's webpage. They are typically brief and summarize the bill and its fiscal impact.
|
One of the more non-partisan elements of legislative history, with the information being prepared not by elected officials but by the staff of the legislature itself. These documents are particularly useful for referring researchers to previous bills introduced earlier in the session or in previous sessions with similar/the same language. Also useful if the legislative intent sought by the researcher involves discrepancies in fiscal impact or changes to administrative law. |
Can be helpful to a researcher in determining the underlying intent behind a subsequent change to a regulation in the Washington Administrative Code. |
| Standing Committee Hearings | Specialized standing committees (list of House committees; list of Senate committees) exist in each chamber, focused on specific topics. These committees consider the proposed legislation and hold public hearings at which interested parties may testify as to the current legal situation surrounding the proposed legislation. |
Committee hearings must be scheduled and noticed 5 days in advance of the hearing itself. Hearings are typically recorded and are on multiple pieces of legislation before the committee. Recordings can be found on the bill's information page, and are usually hosted by TVW. |
Often the most in-depth discussion of the issues surrounding the passage of a piece of legislation with experts and the parties most impacted by the issue speaking in detail about why the legislature should or should not take action with the proposed legislation. | If an amendment to the original legislation is proposed by the committee, the change often originated from an issue raised in the public hearing. The discussion in the hearing itself is not terribly persuasive but the later statement about the reason for a standing committee legislative amendment may be used as evidence of the committee's intent. |
| Standing Committee Reports |
Reports summarize the need for the legislation and the action taken so far. A committee report typically incorporates information from the legislative staff's summary, major contributions made to the discussion during hearings, the committee members' votes, as well as what action the committee recommends take place next.
|
Reports are typically listed in the "Bill Reports" section of the bill's page. |
In addition to being useful summaries of the legislative staffer materials and committee hearings (which a researcher can then use to dig into those documents themselves), reports contain vote counts which help tell the political story behind how legislation was passed and which members/parties supported or opposed it. Amendments: there may be explanations for the changes to existing legislation, which can help fill in the gaps for legislative intent
|
Standing committees comprise only a small number of legislators in a given chamber so the committee reports should not be taken as reflective of the "legislature"'s, or even the chamber's intent. However, standing committees are the subject-specific groups with the expertise and time to fully analyze the issues that come up in proposed legislation. These reports are often relied upon and referenced by the chamber when taking votes and by the rules committee when deciding whether to calendar the legislation for its final reading. |
| Reprinting of the Bill | If the bill text has changed as a result of amendments made by the standing committee, it will be reprinted with the new language incorporated. | The bill information page will contain a "Substitute Bill" under the "Bill Documents" list. | Sometimes, especially for pre-1991 legislative documents, these reprints are the only evidence of the action taken by the standing committee. Useful for the purposes of demonstrating the evolution of the legislation's language. Changes in a reprint represent an opportunity for the researcher to dig into other legislative history documents to try to discover the origin of the changed language. | Only persuasive in demonstrating the evolution of a bill's language. |
| Rules Committee Action |
Each chamber has a Rules Committee, the majority of whose members are from the majority political party in that chamber. Rules committees have the power to decide which legislation sent up from the standing committees gets placed on the calendar for consideration by the entire chamber. The procedure for this process is relatively complex. See the Legislature's Guide to Lawmaking, pp 22-25 for more details. |
The bill's information page will have a list of all actions taken on the bill organized in a chronological calendar. Using that date, a researcher can proceed to the Rules Committee's calendar for that chamber and legislative session to view the video of the meeting and any materials prepared for the meeting. These materials are very brief and typically only comprise the "pulls" by each committee member with no further explanation. LegiScan also maintains a list of the current legislation pending before the Rules Committees:
|
Rules committee action is not significant for legislative history because it is much more of a procedural and political step. However, it is important to understand this step because many bills stop here.
|
No significance in understanding legislative intent. Even if legislation in a previous session was held back by the Rules Committee, there's no documentation of why it was held back. Because there could be so many procedural, political, and strategic reasons for not passing on specific legislation, the fact that the Rules Committee did or did not take action is too hard to read into for purposes of construing intent. |
| Second Reading and Floor Amendments |
Generally, the only time the bill is read to the entire membership of the chamber but the "reading" typically only consists of the title of the bill and the last line. Amendments may be offered on the floor and the bill is typically "bumped" to third reading, skipping a second turn with the Rules Committee. |
Amendments are typically listed on the bill's information page as a separate document under the "Amendments" heading, with the document title identifying the legislator who offered the amendment as well as whether the amendment passed. In addition, amendments are noted in the House and Senate Journal entries for the day on which the reading took place. |
Useful if there are amendments because this is the first time the full legislative body has an opportunity to vote on the legislation (although only on amendments to the legislation). | The more legislators you have demonstrating support for an amendment (so long as that language appears in the final legislation), the more convincing to a judge that the legislature intended for the legislation to mean something. |
| Third Reading and Final Passage |
This is the time for the entire chamber to again discuss the bill and to take a final vote on it. This is typically where the most discussion and debate of a piece of legislation will take place. If the legislation passes the chamber by majority vote, it is engrossed, and passed to the next chamber |
See Second Reading for information about amendments. There will be an entry in the Senate or House journal for the third reading, as well as vote count information. |
Useful. This step includes all members of the chamber who were present for the vote and is thus reflective of that chamber's intent in passing any amendments as well as the legislation's final language. However, barring discussions surrounding amendments, there is often little information about "intent" in the journal entry for the vote--researchers will find the vote count and amendments but little else. | Persuasive so long as the language in the final piece of legislation appeared in the enacted legislation. |
| Opposite Chamber | The same process is followed in the opposite chamber of the legislature, with similar steps and documents created. | HEARINGS: Note that hearings in the other chamber can include testimony from experts not at the hearing in the original chamber/committee. This means that a researcher should be checking standing committee hearing information for both chambers to get a full accounting of testimony sought and received by the legislature for this bill. | ||
| Concurrence/Conference |
If the engrossed legislation from one chamber was amended by the second chamber, the first chamber must decide if it concurs with the changes. If the first chamber does concur, the legislation passes. If the first chamber disagrees with the second chamber, it can as the second to recede from its amendments. If the second chamber so does, then the legislation passes. If the two chambers cannot agree, then one chamber can request a conference committee, which will include appointees from each chamber to try to seek a resolution. |
Conference Reports are NOT listed in the "Reports" section of a bill's information page, unlike other bill reports. Instead, researchers should look in the list of amendments for a "Conference" "Striker" to find evidence of the matters agreed to by the two houses during their conference to reconcile the provisions in the two different bills. Example here. |
Useful for determining the areas of major contention by examining the provisions that were struck from the final version and which provisions made it into the final version. | If the legislation is passed following a conference committee between both chambers, any discussions of intent in the ensuing report illustrates the will of BOTH houses, which is extremely persuasive. |
| Enrolled Legislation | The bill as it has passed both houses of the legislature is called an enrolled bill. This legislation represents the entirety of what the legislature intended to pass. |
"Bill as Passed Legislature" is the final version of the bill as it was agreed to by both houses, typically listed last in the "Bill Documents" portion of the bill's information page. It will contain a "Certificate of Enrollment", indicating that both houses have officially passed the legislation and that it is ready for executive action.
|
This is the last time a researcher will see the bill language before it goes to the governor for signature/veto. | This version is useful in examining the legislation as the legislative branch intended it to be enacted. Highly persuasive as to the legislature's intent inasmuch as this language is what was voted on by both houses, but likely not going to contain any additional commentary on legislative intent beyond what's in the legislation as it appears in a statutory code. |
| Governor's Action |
During this step, the state executive (the governor) signs the enrolled legislation into law. The governor can partially or wholly veto the legislation. Once the legislation is signed, it becomes an enacted bill. |
The fact of the governor signing or vetoing legislation is listed in the "Other Than Legislative Action" portion of the bill's information page. Unlike similar situations with the federal executive, Washington governors do NOT issue signing statements as a part of their signing of a piece of legislation into law. However, you can view TVW recordings of gubernatorial legislative signings to see if the governor made an oral statement while signing the legislation. TVW < Advanced Search < Categories: Governor's Office. The governor's website maintains a "Veto Archive", which contains a list of all vetoes of legislation going back to 2013. Veto documents typically take the form of a letter from the governor to the legislature detailing the bill (or subsections thereof) which are being vetoed by the governor. Veto statements are NOT on the bill information page. Vetoes can be searched, going back to 1985, using the Legislative Search feature on the Legislature's website, selecting "Legislative Documents" < the biennium < and then clicking the radio button next to "Veto". Prior to 2013, veto information can be found in The Laws of Washington. There may also be news reports of vetoes or gubernatorial legislative action. |
Any vetoes or statements made at the time of signing indicate the governor's reasoning behind signing or vetoing the legislation. | Not persuasive in that the governor's action is not reflective of the legislature's intent in passing the legislation, given that the legislature is not involved in this step. |
| Veto Override |
Should the governor veto all or part of a piece of enrolled legislation, such veto can be overcome by a 2/3 majority of the members of each chamber voting to overrule the veto. In such cases, the legislation becomes law without the governor's signing.
|
Because vetoes may take place following the end of the legislative session, a special veto session may be called in order for legislators to discuss overriding a gubernatorial veto and vote on such matter. These are very rare. | Useful in demonstrating the will of the largest number of legislators that ever agree on any legislation. | The most persuasive action as to legislative intent, at least in the inclusion of the vetoed provisions. Discussion on the floor may contain some statements regarding intent. |
| Finalizing the Legislation | Legislative staffers will take the legislation after is is finalized by the governor and prepare a final bill report, which will detail the basics of the legislation. |
The Final Bill Report should be listed last under "Bill Reports." This report is created by legislative staff, summarizing the bill's subject, the background, its sponsors, any accompanying legislation, the legislative votes in both houses, the effective date, as well as what the governor's action was. The Final Bill Report will also include a chapter number and year of the bill when it was passed, which will become the bill's "public law number." For example, "chapter 297, Laws of 2022" was the 297th law passed in the 2022 legislative session. |
A useful summary of information for someone before they dive into the specific documents in the bill information page. | Procedural step not related to legislative intent. |
| Session Law publication | Each bill passed in a legislative session becomes a "session law" following approval by the governor. Session laws are made official in the order in which they were signed during the session, and assigned a public law number. |
The session law is listed under the Other Than Legislative Action section of a bill's information page. The document itself will contain a "Certificate of Enrollment" The public law number, which is the number that will be used from this point forward to identify this legislation, will be indicated at the top of the session law in the form of Chapter and Year |
Final step before the bill language is incorporated into a formal publication, the Laws of Washington. | Not persuasive. |
| Placed in the Laws of Washington | The Laws of Washington is the state's formal session law publication and the place where researchers can find all of the legislation passed in one session of the legislature in chronological order of their date of passage. |
The Laws of Washington, going back to 1854, are all digitized on the state legislature's website. This is where a researcher can first find the provisions that are listed in the history note at the bottom of every statute and also how a researcher finds the bill number for the legislation, which is the key to unlocking the rest of the legislation's history. |
The Laws of Washington entry for the legislation is the official version of the law as it was passed. Importantly, this is the place where researchers can find legislation in its official publication form, before it gets broken up by subject and placed in the RCW. It can be much easier to read the legislation in this form than in its statutory form. |
Should there be any discrepancies between the version of the legislation that's in the statutory code and the session law, it is the session law version in the Laws of Washington that is correct. |
| Broken up and placed in the Revised Code of Washington |
The Revised Code of Washington, which is Washington's statutory code, is arranged by subject-specific title. Session laws that are newly passed are all added to the RCW, and any provisions that new laws have removed will also be removed from the RCW. Each statute has a bracketed statement after all of the legislative provisions indicating all of the times when this statute has been amended by legislative action. |
The RCW is published every two years, with a supplementary publication coming out in the year between publication. More information about the process can be found from the Office of the Code Reviser. You can find the current RCW on the state legislature's website. Historical versions of the RCW going back to 1973 can be found in the RCW Archive from the state legislature. Pre-1973 versions of the RCW are rather tricky to access. Gallagher does have historical codes in print--reach out to lawref@uw.edu for more information about how to access and use them. |
A statute is how a researcher knows what the current law is. The historical credit at the bottom of a statute leads a researcher to the session law, which will then lead the researcher to the bill number that led to the session law. The bill number is the key to unlocking legislative history. |
The statutory text tends to stand for itself unless there is an ambiguity in the language that needs resolution. Should a researcher find such ambiguity, they will need to proceed up this chart to uncover the legislative actions that led to the statutory language. |