Search Tools and Filters

A variety of search tools and post search filters are available to help surface the matters that may impact your organization.

Search Tools:

• Topic Search: helps you identify legislation by selecting 1 or more topic, subtopic, or keyword regardless of the language used in the bill. Pre-Search filters are located on the home page below the search bar within the “See More” menu. Post-search filters are located within the Filters on the left of the search results page.
• Search by Term or Phrase: displays highlighted text hits in context for searched terms or phrases.
• Search by Author: allows you to query all bills that a particular legislator is sponsoring. Enter the author’s last name within the search bar followed by [auth]. EXAMPLE: Smith [auth]
• Search by Agency: query all regulations proposed by a specific state agency. Enter the agency name within the search bar followed by [agency]. EXAMPLE: Department of Insurance [agency]
• Search Title and Summary: limits search to titles and/or summary only. Highlighted will still occur within the text if found, however, record will qualify only if there are hits within the title or summary.
  • Use [title] to search title field only.
  • Use [sum] to search summary field only.
  • Use [title,summ] to search both title and summary fields.
  • EXAMPLE: privacy [title,summ]
• Search Term or Phrase with Topic: requires search results to include both entered term or phrase AND selected topic(s). EXAMPLE: If privacy is entered into search bar and the subtopic “Business Practices” are selected, results will only be displayed if the word privacy is found within the text and the record has been assigned the “Business Practices” subtopic.
• Use Legislative Archive to locate bills from previous sessions. Toggle button located within Measure Types filter.

Post Search Filters:

• Process Date: The process date is the date the measure was brought onto the State Net platform. Enter a start date to filter results that have had a process date for the entered date or later.
• Measure Types: Filter results by specific measure type. Select 1 or more (ex: Bills or Regulations) to limit your results to a specific measure type, default is all subscribed measure types. Legislative Archive is also located within this filter.
• Jurisdictions: limit results to specific jurisdiction(s). Select 1 or more state, territory, or locality (lists vary based on subscription), default is all jurisdictions subscribed to.
• Session: limit results to “Regular” or “Special” session. Some jurisdictions will use the same numbering conventions for both Regular and Special Sessions, this allows for searching by specific session.
• Status and Stage: limit results by the current legislative status (such as still pending, scheduled for hearing, or enacted) or to measures that have progressed to a minimum stage in the legislative or regulatory process (for example the bill has at least passed first committee, passed first chamber, or passed second chamber).
• Topics: limit results to require specific topic(s) in addition to the term or phrase entered in the search bar.
• Tracking: limit results to include measures that you have already tracked or measures that are untracked on your profile.

Results Sort By Options:

• Relevance: sort results to first list the closest match to the term or phrase entered in the search bar.
• Jurisdiction (A-Z): default view, sort results by jurisdiction name
• Jurisdiction (Z-A): sort results in descending order of jurisdiction name
• Newest Action Date: sort results to list records from the most recent action dates to the oldest action dates.
• Oldest Action Date: sort results to list records from the oldest last action dates to the newest action dates.