You may have used the Thomas Search Site. but much of what you find may be incomprehensible. For example, what does “HJRes143″ means?
There’s good news and bad news about Thomas, the federal legislative search engine that lets you find information about any bill before congress. The good news is that it exists. The bad news is that it can be as confounding as an IRS form.
The aim of the site, of course, is to let people quickly find a bill, read the text, and find out where it is in the legislative process and who sponsored it. So here are some quick tips to find what you want, fast:
1. When you’re searching for a word or phrase, don’t use the Bill Summary & Status Link instead, use the Word/Phrase search box. as shown below.
If you search using the Bill Summary & Status link, you’ll only search abstracts of the bills, not their full texts. For example, if you search for “software” using the Bill Summary & Status link, you’ll find fewer bills than if you use the Word/Phrase search box.
2. If you know the number of a bill, you can search for it in the Bill Number search box, and Thomas is positively open minded about the format. For a House bill, all you have to do is slap an “HR”, with or without periods, upper or lowercase, before the bill number (for example, “HR 2929″ or “h.r. 2929″). You don’t even need a space between the HR and the number. To search for a Senate bill, preface the number with an “S” as in “S150″ or “s 150″.
3. If you want to print out a bill, search for the bill, click the result you want to view, and then click GOP’s PDF Display link. Bills are normally displayed in HTML, but these pages don’t print out well. The GPO link takes you to a neatly formatted PDF version of the bill, just like the one your congressman sees.
4. Learn the lingo. H.R. means that its a bill before the House of Representatives. S. means its a bill before the Senate. H.J.Res means that its a House Joint Resolution, and S.J.Res means that its a Senate Joint Resolution. So what’s a joint resolution? In essence, its almost the same as a bill, but its used for more limited matters, such as asking for money for a single purpose and as with any bill, the President has to sign it. H.Con.Res. stands for House Concurrent Resolution, and S.Con.Res. stands for Senate Concurrent Resolution. Now we are really getting complicated. A concurrent resolution isn’t something that becomes a law, and it doesn’t require the President’s Signature. It’s used for such things as congratulating another country on the anniversary of its independence.
Rumors about Internet Tax
Rumors on the Internet swarm like honeybees in summer, and one rumor that refuses to die is that of so called “Internet tax” or email surcharge. The rumor, first started in 1999, is spread by an email message that claims that “Congressman Schnell” has introduced “Bill 602P” which would let the federal government charge five cents for every email people send. (Hey, there’s one way to solve the spam problem!) According to the message, Internet Service Providers would collect the money and turn it over to the Post Office.
Sorry, conspiracy fans, no such bill exists. In fact, no such congressman exists. And “602P” is meaningless a “P” is never used to designate a bill.
The rumor has become so widespread that the U.S Postal Service had issued a press release saying it isn’t true. and again, the rumor has become so widespread that the FCC has likewise issued a press release dispelling it.
