A bill file is a compilation of documents relating to a bill—everything from committee reports, fiscal notes, and markups of the bill, to lobbying correspondence and roll call vote tallies.
If your bill dates from 1976 to ~12 years ago, you’re in luck. During this timeframe, the Department of Legislative Services preserved the bill files on microfilm (and, from 2003, also on CD) and distributed them to depository libraries such as ours. If your bill falls outside this date range, then the files are only available in their physical form from the Department of Legislative Services’ library. Very recent bill files (less than one year old) will likely still be in the custody of the relevant legislative committee.
Below, we have a few images from the bill file for Laws 1991, HB 1047. The first is taken from the Fiscal Note issued by the General Assembly’s Department of Fiscal Services, Division of Fiscal Research:
As you can see, the Note is intended to evaluate the fiscal impact of a bill on a state and local level.
This next excerpt is from the conference committee amendments, providing a background for our particular area of interest:
You may even find notes summarizing and explaining portions of the bill and/or comparing the bill to other similar legislation:
