Legislative tracking
Bills We're Watching
Pennsylvania's General Assembly files thousands of bills each session and passes a few hundred. These are the nine areas we follow, the route a bill has to travel, and what we write down when one moves.
No bills are listed yet, on purpose
Bill text, committee actions, and roll-call votes come from the Open States API, which needs a key this deployment does not have yet. Until it does, there is nothing here we can stand behind.
This page used to list bills. They were fabricated, and they were removed rather than relabelled as samples, because they attached invented histories to real Pennsylvania bill numbers. Anyone who looked one up would have found a genuine bill with a story we made up. An empty page is the honest version.
Everything below is real today: the nine subject areas we track, the route a bill has to travel, and what we record at each step. When the key is added, bills appear here automatically and the same rules apply to all of them.
- Missing
- OPENSTATES_API_KEY
- Already real
- 252 sitting members across 253 seats (one vacant), their districts and contact records, and the county map
- Waiting on the key
- Bills, roll-call votes, and every grade that depends on them
The nine areas we track
Each one has a published scope that defines what counts as evidence inside it. Consumer privacy and government technology are covered too: privacy through breach-notification and disclosure duties, government technology through agency pilots and procurement standards.
How a bill becomes law in Pennsylvania
Two chambers, a committee stage in each, and a Governor. Most bills never finish, and the session clock resets everything every two years.
Introduced
A member has filed the bill and it has a number. Most bills go no further than this.
In committee
Referred to a committee, where the chair decides whether it ever gets a hearing. This is where most bills stop.
Reported out
The committee voted to send it to the full chamber. The first real signal a bill is moving.
Passed chamber
One chamber approved it. It now starts over in the other chamber, committee and all.
Passed both chambers
Both the House and Senate approved identical text. Next stop is the Governor.
Then one of three things
- Enacted
- Signed by the Governor, or allowed to become law without a signature. It is now law.
- Vetoed
- The Governor rejected it. The General Assembly can override with a two-thirds vote in both chambers.
- Failed
- Defeated on a vote, or died when the two-year session ended. Anything not enacted by then must be reintroduced from scratch.
What we record when a bill moves
A grade is only as good as what sits behind it, so every input is recorded with its type. Votes carry the most weight and press coverage the least.
- Roll-call vote
- A recorded yes or no. The strongest evidence there is, because it is a decision rather than a position.
- Primary sponsorship
- The member wrote it or led it. A deliberate act of authorship.
- Co-sponsorship
- The member signed on. Real support, though it costs less than sponsoring.
- Committee action
- A vote or motion in committee, where most bills are decided.
- Hearing remarks
- What the member said on the record while the bill was being examined.
- Public statement
- A public position outside the chamber. Counted, but weighted well below a vote.
- Press coverage
- Coverage that documents a position. Context, never the basis for a grade on its own.