Understanding State Bills

For those of you who have taken a look at the Bills regarding State Aid for Undocumented Students post or have come here before doing so, this post focuses on breaking down what is a Bill Number and the different types that a bill gets assigned, how to interpret the content and its current status.

Please note that the information that I am presenting comes from the CT-N State Civics Toolbox PDF[1], which has also been attached below. After researching additional websites to confirm the information presented was consistent, I decided to follow through with the CT-N State Civics Toolbox PDF because I believe they did an amazing job on breaking down this kind of information to the general public especially those of us (including myself) who are new to law literacy.

The CT-N State Civics Toolbox PDF also provides additional information on understanding Bills yet for the purpose of familiarizing ourselves with the specific bills addressed in the Bills regarding State Aid for Undocumented Students post through a PDF file; I will only be focusing on the information provided below. 

Bill Number:

• The LCO (also known as, the drafting office) submits a bill to be filed, which is then given a number by either the House or Senate clerk. The bill will keep that same number throughout the entire process during the legislative session.
• Bills indicated with an “HB” before the bill numbers are determined to be a House Bill. This means that the bill had started at the House when it was first proposed and then sent through the process. House Bills are assigned numbers from 5,001-9,999.
• Bills indicated with an “SB” before the bill numbers are determined to be a Senate Bill. This means that the bill had started at the Senate when it was first proposed and then sent through the process. Senate Bills are assigned numbers from 1-5,000.
• In some cases, a bill will later become a substitute bill whether it is a House Bill or a Senate Bill. Substitute Bills are written as, “sHB” for a Substitute House Bill and “sSB” for a Substitute Senate Bill.

Aside from House and Senate, some bills are also known to be indicated as “A” or “AB” before the bill number. Bills with "A" or "AB" are determined to be an Assembly Bill. This means that the bill had started at the Assembly of [insert name here] when it was first proposed and then sent through the process[2].

The Title:

• A clear and organized statement that in no way conceals the bill’s content or is written in any way that can mislead the reader.

The Bill Content:

• Most of the time bills are amended (a modification made or proposed in a bill, resolution or motion by adding, substituting or deleting language[3]).
• When a bill contains new wording it will be underlined.
• New wording will be underlined EXCEPT when there is an entire paragraph in new wording, which will then be preceded by the word “NEW”.
• When a bill contains wording that is being omitted or repealed it is then placed between brackets.

• When attempting to read a bill it is important to read the old wording along with the new wording skipping over the content that are between brackets.

Current Status:

• When looking at the State Education Bills PDF, you may notice a column labeled as “STATUS”. The column indicates the current process of the bill with the status written in GREEN if the bill has been passed or the status written in RED if the bill has been denied. Statuses in which, are written in black indicates that the bill is still being processed and is currently at the location given in the column. 

Effective Date(s):

• October 1st: Unless otherwise stated, all public acts are assigned to take into effect on October 1st.

• July 1st: Bills relating to budgets and containing appropriations are assigned to take into effect on July 1st, because that is also when the state starts its fiscal year. One can usually find this wording to be written as, “This act shall take effect July 1st, 2015”.

• From Passage: During compelling circumstances and when attempting to give people adequate advanced warning of a new law, public acts should be effective from passage. In addition, there are “potential due process problems with acts that are effective upon passage”[4]