The Civics307 website has been given an upgrade with an improved look and feel. This is what is possible when a professional web developer takes on the task instead of a rank amateur using very rudimentary skills and basic website tools.
Note the RED box in the upper right corner. This will contain the most recent bill tracker instead of being buried in “file share” where it was previously posted.
Additional files are, oddly enough, found under “Files.” There are currently four accordian groups that expand to display the files for that category. Archived Bill Trackers, Archived Voting Records, Presentation and Additional Information. Archived Bill Trackers have the current year and all previous final Bill Trackers going back to the first year, 2019. Archived Voting Records include current and previous. Presentations have a variety of Powerpoint files including presentations made in committee meetings. One that may be of interest is the Legislative Process General Session.pptx with a process map showing all the steps of a bill moving through to enactment. Additional Information is a bit of a catchall.
Blog entries, like this one, are displayed from latest to earliest as well as being seen on the landing page…or at least the most recent.
Bills of Interest will be a future feature. The idea is to have an in depth look into proposed or enacted legislation to aid in understanding what the bill does, what problem it proposes to address and why, what are the arguments for it (and by whom) as well as the arguments against it (and by whom). In an ideal world, this could be a clearinghouse to give a balanced evaluation of every bill. In the real world, there is not enough time or resources to do that regardless of how beneficial it would be.
As you can tell by the age of the previous blogpost, finding time during session to write blogs has become more and more of a challenge. However, the bill tracker is being updated every night and the voting record every couple of days.
If you like this format, let us know. If you can think of improvements, send those on as well.
