Search Instructions

The Search Phrase, above, ignores common English words and punctuation. Additionally, it supports the following operators:

• + or spaces between terms combines them with AND, e.g. both are required
• | between terms combines the terms with OR, e.g. only one is required
• - preceeding a term removes documents containing that term from the results
• " surrounds a number of terms to signify a phrase for searching
• * at the end of a term signifies wildcard search
• Use ( and ) around terms to change precedence, e.g. toast ( jelly | jam ) means to search for "toast" with "jelly or jam" in the text. Without parentheses, the search would be to find documents with "toast and jelly" or "jam" by itself.
• ~N ('N' is a number) after a term signifies distance from other terms in the query
• ~N ('N' is a number) after a phrase signifies how much the phrase can be re-arranged or spread out

To use one of the characters above literally, escape it with a preceding backslash "\".

The "Must Include" and "Must Not Include" fields search precise, space-separated terms in the text in a case insensitive manner with punctuation. This means that public law 2021, chapter 628, will match that exact text in a budget bill, but public law 2021 c. 628 will not, as the spelling and punctuation must match exactly.

Use the "Title Text", "Paper Number" and "LD Number" fields to limit results to matching documents. The operators above don't work in these fields.

• Show Only Chaptered Law If checked, only chaptered law documents appear in the results.
• Sorting:
  By default, results appear in descending order of Legislature (current first) and ascending LD Number.
  • Best Match - Check to sort results by how well the search terms match the document, not by Legislature and LD number.
  • Oldest First - When checked, results are sorted in ascending order of Legislature (earliest first) then by LD Number, lowest first.
• Show Bill Text: Check this box to see the bill text in the search results, note, formatting may not be correct.
• Exclude No LD Papers: When checked, results will exclude Papers that do not have LD numbers.
• Page Size: Sets the number of results per page, 10 - 500 is allowed.

Use the ADVANCED SEARCH button to display extra form fields, which enables searching by many bill characteristics relating to committee and status.