NURS 7322 - Healthcare Policy, Analysis and Advocacy

Create an account in My TLO to:

• Save searches
• Create alerts
• Create bill lists
• Track bills

Take a look at this useful information provided by TLO about following bills in the online system.

Unfortunately, users cannot search for keywords across legislative sessions.

After finding the bill with a keyword search:

• Record the bill number
• Save to your list in My TLO

Pro tip - If you are unsure of the legislative session and have a specific bill in mind, use a search engine to find more info before looking on TLO.

There are a couple of ways to look for all bills introduced in a session:

1. Go to the Legislation tab and look under General Reports
2. Go to the Legislation tab and look under Bills by Subject

The General Reports tab also allows users to find bills by:

• Effective date
• Status with the Governor
• Place filed

From the Senate Research Center:

A bill analysis is a summary of a bill written in layman's terms. According to the Senate Rules, in order for a piece of legislation to be heard on the Senate floor, a bill must be accompanied by, among other items, a bill analysis (Senate Rule 7.12(b)(10)).

A bill analysis is composed of three sections: Author's/Sponsor's Statement of Intent; Rulemaking Authority; and Section-by-Section Analysis. If the bill is amended in committee, a fourth section, entitled List of Committee Amendments, will be added to the BA.

• Author's/Sponsor's Statement of Intent: This section contains three segments: a statement of current law, the problem which initiated the legislation, and how the bill changes the law to solve the problem.
• Rulemaking Authority: This section explains which state-level governmental entity has been given the authority to make rules, on what subject, in which section of bill, and in which section or article of the law it will appear.
• Section-by-Section: This is a summary of proposed changes to each section or article of the law. These are broken up into sections in a bill, and analyzed accordingly. If the bill is substituted in committee, the Section-by-Section Analysis is updated to reflect the changes made by the substitute.
• List of Committee Amendments: In this section, amendments made in committee are reproduced in their entirety.

The bill analysis will help you understand your bill, its potential impact, and the stakeholders.

Introduced

• The text of the bill as it was first introduced to the legislature

Engrossed

• Text of the bill after it has passed through its originating legislative body (House or Senate)

Enrolled

• Text of the bill after it has passed both houses of the legislature; the bill is now a law