Looking up a Bill
Researching legislation? The leg.wa.gov website offers easy ways to find bills, past and present. Learn how to find bills by:• Bill number• Topics• Pre-filed bills• Bill sponsor
Civics Topic: Legislative Branch
Using the Bill Info Page
You’ve made it to the bill info page, and now you’d like to make sense of all the resources and information on this page – Let us give you a quick rundown on all this info at your finger tips! You’ll find:• Who the sponsors are• Roll call votes• The actions taken by date• Original and revised bill versions• Bill Reports• Fiscal Notes• Amendments• Available videos
Reading the Bill and the Bill Report
Bills are drafted and filed for legislative action. Typically these bills are revisions to existing laws. This video explains how to make sense of these documents and their revisions, and perhaps even more importantly, how to make use of the Bill Reports. This video covers:
Signing up to Testify
So your bill is scheduled for a public hearing and you want to make your voice be heard – Corey can walk you through leg.wa.gov to register your position, or even sign up to testify in the committee hearing. It’s easy!
How to Find Videos on TVW.org
Learn how to search for Washington State legislative videos on TVW.org and find bill hearings step by step.
2026 Tech For Teens – Legislative Branch Explained
This video collection follows two real Washington State bills focused on technology and youth—AI chatbots and social media feeds—as they move through the full legislative process. From public hearings and stakeholder advocacy to amendments, floor debate, and final decisions, viewers see how lawmakers, the public, and state leaders shape policy in real time. Along the way, the series highlights key concepts like committee work, bill cutoffs, lobbying, and the governor’s role, helping teachers, students, and the general public connect civics concepts to current issues in Olympia. Essential Questions
The Final Step – Tech For Teens
The 2026 legislative session ended at 8:30pm on March 12th, but the law making process continues. 276 bills were passed by the state legislature in 2026, which represented less than 10% of the bills filed this year. HB 2225, regulating AI Companion Chatbots, passed both the House and the Senate on March 12th. Once a bill is passed through both the House and the Senate and is signed by both the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, it travels across the rotunda to the governor’s office. If the bill is passed fewer than five days before the end of session, he has 5 days to sign it into law. If the bill is passed within 5 days of the end of session, the governor has 20 days, not counting Sundays, to sign it into law. Once a bill does reach the governor’s desk, the governor has 4 options: Due to the complexity of the AI Chatbot legislation, it will not go into effect until January 1, 2027, giving companies time to set up compliance systems. Most of the bills passed this session, however, will go into effect on June 11, 2026.
Time Management – Tech For Teens
Legislative priorities become progressively clearer as it gets closer and closer to Sine Die (the day the legislative session is over). Even bills that have support must be pulled from the Rules Committee to even be eligible for a vote, and even if they are, they then must be called to the floor by the majority party. Both the majority and the minority party have strategies they employ during these last few weeks of session, and they all involve how to manage the clock. This week in Tech for Teens, we speak with Democratic Senator Lisa Wellman, the prime sponsor of the AI Companion Chatbot bill, and Republican Representative Travis Couture, Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, about the importance of definitions in legislation, how time management works on the floor, and the differing opinions on the enforcement mechanism used in the AI Chatbot bill.
Floor Debate – Tech For Teens
It is officially the second half of the legislative session! On Tuesday February 17th, all bills needed to be voted off the floor in their House of Origin to stay alive. This self-imposed deadline means that many of the bills that the House and Senate were considering did not make it past this cutoff. There is simply not enough time to debate and pass all of the bills that made it through committee. Sometimes a bill does not have the votes to pass, so leadership does not bring it up for a vote. Sometimes there is not enough time to debate and vote on all the bills, so leadership has to prioritize which bill to move to the floor for a vote. Over 3,000 bills were filed during the 2026 legislative session. After the first policy committee cutoff on February 4th, 1,405 of them were still alive. After the second cutoff, House of Origin Fiscal Committee, 679 bills were still alive. Now, after the House of Origin cutoff, 401 are still alive. Tech for Teens: the Personalized/Addictive Feeds Bill (HB 1834) failed to make it to the House Floor for a vote. The AI Companion Chatbot bills (HB 2225/SB 5984) did pass through both the House and the Senate, with amendments, and will now be heard in policy committees in the opposite chambers.
NTIB – Necessary To Implement the Budget
The Washington State Legislature runs on a series of self imposed cutoff dates. By 5pm on Friday, all bills must be passed through the Opposite House: House bills must pass through the Senate and Senate bills must pass through the House. If they do not get brought up for a vote, or they do not have the votes to pass, they are considered dead for the year. Except! Not all bills are subject to these cutoffs. Bills that deal with the budget (Operating, Capital, and Transportation) and bills that are deemed NTIB (Necessary to Implement the Budget) do not need to follow these cutoff calendars. But what does the acronym NTIB actually mean in practice? Hear from Civics Teacher for All, Ms. Paulson, and former Director of the Office of Financial Management Victor Moore, as they explains the ins and outs of NTIB bills.