Bill Number Madness

Bill numbers are frustratingly tricky things when you deal with normalizing every local state and Congressional legislative process in the United States. There is some commonality, but there's a lot of diversity as well.

In general bill numbers follow the form of ChamberTypeNumber, for example: HB828,  SJR15, etc. In order to be able to reliably track all legislation in the United States, LegiScan does take liberty and leeway adjusting bill number representations. Below is a table that attempts to explain the various types and formats that are in use across the US and how LegiScan will try to interpret where it can to find matching bills in the system.

Search Tips

• Enter the full bill number to search for an exact bill number across all sessions on file. Ex: HB1, SR9, AB302
• Specify a simple number match all chambers and all legislation with that bill sequence number. Ex: 12, 345, 42
• Using the type and number portion of a bill only matches legislation from both chambers with that number. Ex: B1492, R17, JR3
• DO NOT enter the state abbreviation, use the State selector to specify national or a specific state
• DO NOT enter the year, the system returns all session and provides historical lists on bill detail pages
• DO NOT enter draft revision number/letters, all texts on record are provided from the bill detail page

NOTE: A common problem with US Congressional House Bills is the House uses 'R' for bills and the unabbreviated 'Res' for resolutions. Whereas in most other chambers, R is a Resolution. Taking the rule over the exception, LegiScan uses the common nomenclature. Therefore if you are looking for H.R.1 (House Bill 1), it will be HB1, and if you seek H.Res.1 (House Resolution 1), it will be HR1.