12-Step Guide for Reviewing Bills6 min read

Reviewing bills is important for grassroot activism. If we want to abolish and criminalize abortion, we must understand what laws our representatives are trying to enact. For the uninitiated, this may seem daunting. One look at the word salad that is any bill is enough to give someone hives. Therefore, we often rely the news, influencers, or political pundits as to how we should vote, who we should support, and what we should – well – believe. Unfortunately, as we and others have demonstrated, these are all terribly unreliable sources. With our guide, and some practice, we believe you can give yourself the critical edge necessary to be self-informed, and therefore, prepared to self-govern.

The need to review bills

We’ve documented dozens of examples, over the years, of “friendly” news outlet pushing bad bills. Through gross negligence, or worse, they’ve rallied the anti-abortion community to support legislation which, lo and behold, protects abortion more than stops it. A glance at any of the pro-life news websites — LiveAction, Life Site News, Life News — or any article on conservative news sites — like Breitbart, Newsmax, or Daily Wire — regarding abortion, you’ll quickly see a common issue. While politicians, lobbyists, and activists are quoted a plenty, rarely if ever is the actual bill. If the bill is quoted, it’s usually a sentence, and often a misleading one at that. This may come as a shocker, but politicians, lobbyists, and activists lie — especially when speaking to the press.

Worse yet, last year, we demonstrated how with Value Them Both in Kansas, the pro-life movement had been co-opted by baby murderers attempting to co-opt pro-life support. Value Them Both would have paved the way for unrestricted abortion in Kansas and subverted attempts to abolish abortion.

Finally, as we’ve said time and time again, it doesn’t matter what anyone says will be in a law, what matters is what is actually written in the law. In the legal world, words matter. Even punctuation can have serious consequences. Reading the actual bill makes it harder for unsavory players to pull the wool over your eyes. It also enables you to find fatal errors and challenge false claims authoritatively. You cease being a passive pawn and become an active source of truth.

Being the only person in the room who has actually read the bill can give a competitive edge in advocating for or against legislation. Consider the fact, many legislators don’t even read the bills they vote on!

Finding bills to review

Outside of seeing bills in the news and on social media, one must know how to actually find bills to review. We recommend two excellent resources:

• Your state legislature’s website (use a search engine)
• OpenStates.org

OpenStates.org is a powerful, free, and nonpartisan tool to search for bills across the country using a number of filters. It can also help you get in touch with your legislators. Among the filter options is the ability to search by topic. Abortion related bills often appear in health, ethics, and criminal justice related committees. It varies from state to state, and sometimes, bills get sent to odd committees just to get rid of them. Be vigilant.

Guide for reviewing legislation

The following is meant to be a guide for reading and reviewing legislation. It is not exhaustive or infallible. Use your best judgment. These are tricks we’ve learned over the years from reviewing and commenting on legislation, but you may learn techniques which are better for you. Please let us know what works best for you.

This guide is written from the perspective you are reading a pro-life or abolitionist slanted bill. Most of these tips are still valid for any other piece of legislation whether you’re for or against it. Adjust accordingly.

1. Read the whole bill — politicians will tuck important parts into seemingly unimportant sections
   1. Read the bill first free of note-taking, if you can highlight or mark the document you’re working with, that may be helpful, but focus on reading and not start or stopping
   2. The second time through, take your notes
2. Determine if the whole bill is dedicated to this issue
   1. If a larger bill, determine if the larger bill is in anyway related
      1. If not, what is this doing here?
      2. Is the larger bill harmless? Does the larger bill have serious issues which make this unsupportable?
   2. Why was this not separated as its own bill?
3. Establish the bill’s current status — If the bill is already signed into law, might want to keep looking
   1. Is it in committee? If so, which? How long has it been there?
   2. Has it already cleared the house?
4. Identify the stated purpose
   1. According to the authors?
   2. According to the lobbyists?
5. Identify the stated means the legislation is to accomplish the stated purpose
   1. Are the means legal? This includes compliant with both the US and state constitutions.
   2. Are these means reasonable and rationale? In other words, can the means which this legislation plans to use actually accomplish the purpose for which it intends?
6. Identify the actual purpose
   1. Is it the same as the stated purpose?
   2. How does it differ?
   3. If different, is the difference the result of a technicality, deliberate misdirect, etc.?
7. Identify the actual means the legislation is to accomplish the actual purpose
   1. How does it differ from the stated means?
   2. How does it differ?
   3. If different, is the difference the result of a technicality, deliberate misdirect, etc.?
8. Pinpoint existing government structures — laws, departments, funding, statutes, etc. — which will be modified by this legislation
   1. Does this legislation include the modified text? If the text isn’t included or the modifications unclear, locate the referenced law or statute and try and determine what it does. The purpose of a bill can be concealed by modifying other laws by name without clearly defining what those other laws actually are
   2. Does it indicate in what way the other structures will be modified?
   3. Are the laws being modified relevant to the purpose and means of this legislation? Or is there no logical connection? Is it “pork”?
   4. Are these modifications legal?
9. Determine if the legislation will expand or contract government
   1. Will additional agencies or offices be needed or required?
   2. Will separate funding need to be voted on separate from this legislation? This is important, if this bill doesn’t provide funding, it allows many to vote in favor while the effects of it to be killed by lack of funding later
10. Read carefully, and be very mindful of the wording, writing style, and any changes throughout the bill
    1. If the majority of the bill is easy to read and you suddenly run into a section which is unclear, disorganized, and difficult to read: this is a red flag, pay attention
    2. Do not be lulled into boredom by both overly simple or overly complex language, this can obscure deceptive intentions. Read carefully.
11. Identify who introduced the legislation
    1. What is their record on this issue?
       1. e.g., a pro-abortion Democrat introducing a seemingly pro-life bill should be a huge red flag
       2. Have they had other legislation on this issue pass before?
       3. Are they a good ally or a snake?
    2. Are they on the committee for which this bill was introduced or referred to?
    3. Who are their major donors? OpenSecrets.org/officeholders is an invaluable tool.
12. Identify co-sponsors, if any
    1. If co-sponsors, run the same steps as the previous on the co-sponsors
    2. If the bill is unfavorable, identify which sponsors may drop support with enough pressure
    3. If no co-sponsors, and the bill is favorable, determine who may support with enough pressure — especially if they are in the committee it currently resides in

Final Notes

While it’s important to read carefully, you can read too carefully. Over time, you’ll discover many bills contain lots of boilerplate content, that is, words which are there for reasons you really don’t need to care about. With experience, you will learn what you can skip and where to focus.

Also remember, bills are written by lawyers for lawyers. Typically, they aren’t intended to be understood by laypeople. While there have been pushes in recent years to force legislatures to use plain and simple English when writing laws, this is by no means commonplace. Do not expect to become a legal expert by following these steps. Do not be discouraged if you don’t understand half of what you read. Trust me, even after 9 years of doing this, having had a job where I read legal documents for a living, I still am confounded by some of the nonsense. What is important is that you gain a greater understanding of the political process and the terrible laws which are being peddled by the pro-life and abortion industries. Being informed is a critical part of the battle.

We encourage you to start being proactive in the legislative process. Knowing what your representatives are doing, and not relying on gatekeepers to tell you what legislation really means is empowering. In turn, this will allow you to inform and lead others as we fight to abolish and nullify abortion.