Legislators A Click Away

Let’s say you want to look at a legislative committee’s agenda, get a copy of a bill or see how your representative voted.

Computers have made all that information and more as close as the touch of a finger. Despite the barrier of mountains and miles that separates North Idahoans from the state capitol, legislative information today is easily available to Idaho’s far-flung citizens - if they have access to a computer with a modem and an Internet connection.

Here’s how to look at legislative information on the Internet:

First, point your web browser to this address: http://www.state.id.us.

That gets you into the state’s home page, which offers everything from the governor’s weekly schedule to state agency phone lists to economic forecasts.

Scroll down a ways, and click on “legislative branch.” Now you’re in the Legislature’s home page.

Your options now include everything from general information about how the Legislature works to lists of members and their committee assignments. But the hottest and most up-to-date information is the committee agendas, the reading calendars (schedules for action on the floor of the House and Senate that day), and the legislation.

Click on “1997 Legislation,” and you’ll get access to every bill that’s been introduced this session. Even now, before the session convenes, you can see the 79 bills and two resolutions that have been “prefiled” for early consideration once the session starts.

The options here are “Mini-Data Bill Status Information,” “Legislative topic index to bills” and a handy keyword search function to find the bill you want.

To scan through all the bills, click on the Mini-Data option. This is a complete list of all bills, with House bills listed first and Senate bills second. The bill number is at the left, followed by a four- or five-word description of what it does. At the right is the bill’s status, whether it’s just being printed for distribution, it’s in a committee or it’s up for action in the House or Senate.

Click on the bill number, and you’ll see a complete history of the bill, including roll-call votes in the House and Senate if they’ve been cast. After that comes the full text of the bill.

Words that show up in bold-face are the words the bill would add to that section of law. Words in italics would be deleted if the bill passes. When a bill would add a whole new section to the law, that’s noted.

At the end of the text, you’ll see the Statement of Purpose and Fiscal Impact. A new addition to on-line legislative information this year, this useful section tells you the sponsor’s name and phone number, what he or she had in mind in pursuing the bill, and how much the sponsor estimates the bill will cost the state if it passes.

“The bill text has also been updated this year to be an exact replica of the printed text, which means the line numbers are accurate,” said Glenn Harris, legislative network administrator.

That was an issue last year, because lawmakers often argue about provisions in a bill by pointing to, say, Line 31. Those looking at computer screens now will be able to follow such references.

Harris recommends that people interested in tracking the Legislature create a bookmark in their web browser for the Legislature’s page. The full address for that page is: http://www.state.id.us/legislat/legislat.html, but it may be easier to just access it through the state home page and then create the bookmark.

Citizens can send e-mail to legislators by sending it to this electronic address: infocntr@lso.state.id.us. From there, the Legislature will either forward the message to the lawmaker at his or her computer, or print it out and go with conventional delivery by page, depending on the lawmaker’s preference.

A growing number of legislators are using computers to tap into legislative information. Wireless transmitters allow them to use their own notebook computers in the House and Senate chambers, without having to plug into phone lines.

Idaho is behind other states in how much it’s spending to computerize its Legislature, but it’s ahead on technology, Harris said. That’s partly because the state didn’t automate earlier, then have to switch over.

“The fact that we’re using the (World Wide) Web for the platform is the modern, state-of-the-art way of doing things,” he said. “What we’re providing I think is right there in the state of the art.”

, DataTimes