How-to:
What’s An OLIS?
https://www.oregonlegislature.gov
The Oregon Legislative Information System (OLIS) is the best portal to reach legislators, committees, and find out what is happening in Salem during and between legislative sessions. Here are some pointers on how it may be used by activists monitoring the legislature. I start from the OLIS Home page reached from the above link:
Click on the above hotlink. Once you arrive at the site, you should see the following:
There are several routes to achieve most of our goals, so I will not try to explain all routes but will focus on the 6 tabs near the top center. If you hover your cursor over the tabs, a drop down menu appears to reveal what is available and you can click on your choice. If you are trying to find your legislators and you don’t know who they are, go to ‘Find Your Legislator;’ To find House and Senate member contact information and location click on the tabs on the left; as you will see, Legislators are listed several different ways.
Finding and Tracking a Bill
To explore all bills filed click ‘Bills and Laws.’ If you want to track a particular bill:
(Route 1) , find the bill, click on the bill number and click on the ‘e-Subscribe | RSS’ icon. Then set up an account, indicate your interest in the bill, and you will receive information when the bill is scheduled for action. To learn about the history of a bill and where it currently sits, return to the bill page and scroll down to ‘Measure History >’ and ‘Scheduled Events >’ and explore. The passage of a bill trough the chambers is reported here as are votes undertaken in committees and the chambers.
(Route 2) Click on the ‘OLIS Bills and Committees’ tab. Then Click ‘Bills.’ Once there, you can enter the bill number in the dialog box as HB### or SB### and click ‘Go.’ If you are searching for a bill, you can click ‘Text’ and enter a keyword, or (if you know one of the sponsors) you can Click ‘Bill Sponsor.’ and enter a Senator or Representative name.
Reading and Submitting Testimony
Once on a ‘Bill’ page, you can read testimony already submitted by clicking ‘Testimony,’ (you will be able to see how brief some comments are and that some folks designate they oppose a bill when actually the testimony indicates clearly that they support it (or vice versa), you can submit testimony either by entering directly onto a pop-up box or by uploading a pdf file of your testimony. Note that, once submitted, your testimony becomes public knowledge so the whole world can read it (if they know where to go). From the Bill page, you can also Register to submit oral testimony. You can do this in person in the Committee Hearing Room, or remotely from home. OLIS will send you the link for the remote session through which you will be able to testify. You cannot testify from the regular Hearing viewing option. Most witnesses get 2 of 3 minutes, so be brief and be rehearsed and prepared. As time available diminishes, the time limit may drop to 90 or 60 seconds. Testimony can only be submitted on a bill from the time a Public Hearing is scheduled to 48 hours after that Hearing starts.
Learning about Committees
If you want to learn about a Committee, back up to the page that displays the ‘Session’, ‘Bills’ ‘Committees’, ‘More’ tabs and click ‘Committee.’ You can sign up to learn what a specific committee is doing by clicking this tab and searching under ‘House’, ‘Senate’ or ‘Joint.’ Click the committee you want, again find the ‘e-Subscribe | RSS’ icon, and complete the form. On the committee page, you will find the committee membership, meetings scheduled and the agenda of such meetings. For committee member contact information, click on the name. This is also a portal for finding out what bills are assigned to the committee, when bills will be discussed and for signing up to give oral testimony, submitting written testimony, and/or watching video of committee meetings.
As stated: One convenient aspect of the website is that there are multiple ways to navigate around. For example, from a Committee page, one can jump to bills. My best advice is just to get stuck in and poke around; I don’t think you can break it.
A ten minute video tutorial produced by Cheryl Conway of COIN: