Contact LIC: (360) 786-7573 | Legislative Building, Room 110 | P.O. Box 40500, Olympia, WA 98504-0500
The Legislative Information Center offers free classes to the public and to state agencies on understanding the legislative process and navigating the legislative website. Class recordings are linked below.
Classes Offered
We recommend that Understanding the Legislative Process is taken as a precursor to Navigating the Legislative Website, which should be taken as a precursor to the Advanced Legislative Website Use class.
Detailed Class Descriptions
Understanding the Legislative Process (about 1 hr / Class Handout,
Watch Online-no captions, Watch Online-with captions,
This class is an in-depth view of the bi-cameral legislative system, how it is organized, and how a bill becomes law. The class includes:
- A detailed review of how a bill gets introduced and who can introduce it
- Standing committee proceedings and actions
- Rules committee proceeding and actions
- The amendment process
- Activities in the opposite house
- Dispute and concurrence resolution
- The Governor's actions and veto powers
Navigating the Legislative Website (about 1 hr / Class Handout,
Watch Online)
This class provides an overview of navigating the Legislature's website, includes information on what's new to the website, and gives direction on how to:
- Look up RCWs, WACs, and Procedural Rules
- Find bill information
- Use daily standard reports
- List bills by topic
- Find your district and legislators
- Obtain member contact information
Advanced Legislative Website Use (about 1 hr /
Class Handout,
Watch Online)
This class is an in-depth course on use of the Legislature's advanced features. It includes how to:
- Use Detailed Legislative Reports
- Set up and use the website's bill tracking system
- Use the advanced search engines to locate bills and laws
- Find old bills from previous sessions
- Set up and use the GovDelivery e-mail notification system for hearing times and agendas
Additional Resources
Educational materials regarding the Legislative process can be found under the Legislative Publications, Maps, Rosters, & Guides web page. A listing of current instructional documents and videos are provided below. Please email us at
support@leg.wa.gov on suggestions, questions, or comments regarding instructional documents and videos.
Bill Tracking (Watch Online)
| How to track specific current biennium bills. |
Legislative Search (Watch Online)
| How to use the legislative search function to find bills, RCWs, etc.
|
E-Mail Notification of Hearings (PDF)
| An overview of GovDelivery (e-mail subscription management system) and how to sign up to receive committee hearing notifications. |
How to Read the Bill History Page
(PDF) (Video) | Choose to view either the instructional document or a short video that provides an overview on the structure of the bill history web page. |
RSS for Bill Tracking and Status Change Notification (PDF) | How to sign up to receive bill status RSS feeds (Really Simple Syndication, technology that distributes web content for simplifying the number of websites you visit). |
How to Search for Bills on the Legislative Website (PDF) | How to search for specific bills by bill number, subject matter, RCW cross reference, or sponsor. |
How to Research an RCWs History (PDF)
| Step-by-step instructions on how to track the history of an RCW.
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