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Zone searches

Legislative documents are set with a defined format that allows you to restrict your search to a certain part, or zone, of a document.

Creating a single zone search

Public LegSearch makes it possible to restrict your search to a certain part, or zone, of a document. For example, RCWs have captions, text, histories, and notes, and you can indicate that you want to search only the designated part of the section. You could tell LegSearch to find only those bills that have the word “trout” in the bill title.

  1. Select the Bill & law documents tab.
  2. Click the Zones button.
  3. The following screen appears.
    • Zones modal with fields to select zone(s) and an operator.
  4. Click in the first Search Terms field, then type your search term(s).
  5. Click the zone name from the dropdown list, for example, Text.
    • “Zones modal displaying fields to select one or more zones. All available zones for the document are shown, though not every zone applies to every document.
  6. Click the Search button to run the search.

Zones are only available for select documents indexed under bill & law documents. See examples below.

Combining zone searches

You can search for a term in one document zone and another term in a different document zone. This is referred to as combining zone searches.

  1. Select the Bill & law documents tab.
  2. Click the Zones button.
  3. Repeat steps 4-5 above in the singe zone search.
  4. To add more zone search criteria, click the Operator list dropdown, then click And or Or
    • Click the And operator if you want both conditions to be met. For example, if trout is in the first zone
      and salmon is in the second zone, only those documents containing both trout and salmon would be
      returned.
    • Click the Or operator if you want either condition to be met. For example, if trout is in the first
      zone and salmon is in the second zone, the returned documents would contain either or both terms.
  5. Click in the second Search Terms field, and add your search term(s) and zone.
  6. Click the Search button to run the search.

Zones are only available for select documents indexed under bill & law documents. See examples below.

Historical documents and zones

LegSearch documents were added to the system during different years and biennia. Zones for the document types also began at different times. The following table summarizes when document types and zones were added to LegSearch.

Document type Begins Zones available
Amendments 1991-92 2005-26
Bills 1985-86 2003-04
Concurrent resolutions 1985-86 2003-04
Joint memorials 1985-86 2003-04
Joint resolutions 1985-86 2003-04
Passed Legislature 1985-86 2003-04
Resolutions 1991-92 2003-04
Session laws 1991-92 2003-04
Vetoes 1991-92 2003-04
Initiatives 1989-90 2015-16
Bill reports 1987-88 None
Washington State Register 1997 None
Journals 1993 None
RCWs Not applicable Available
WACs Not applicable Available

Document zones by type and location

 The following table indicates the zone names, the documents affected, and the zone’s location in the document.

Zone name Documents affected Document search location
BeginningSection Bills
Passed Leg
Session Laws
Section jingle, e.g., RCW 81.04.010 and 1993 c 427 s 9 are each amended to read as follows
CaptionsTitles Bills
Passed Leg
Session Laws
RCWs
WACs 
Full bill title, e.g., AN ACT RELATING TO…..
RCW caption at the beginning of each section;
RCW chapter name in the Chapter Digest;
RCW title name in the Title Digest
WAC caption in the WAC Digest;
WAC chapter name in WAC Chapter Digest;
WAC Title name in the Title Digest
Citations RCWs
WACs
RCW section number (AKA citation or cite) e.g., 1.04.010
WAC section number (AKA citation or cite) e.g., 173-100-010
Dissections WACs SLC-reserved zone search
EffectiveDate Session Laws
WACs
Date legislation became effective, e.g., EFFECTIVE DATE: 6/12/08
SLC-reserved zone searches
History RCWs
WACs
Follows the text of the section and appears in square brackets; indicates when the section was amended
Notes RCWs
WACs
Annotator’s Note
Reviser’s Note
Cross-reference Note
Reviser’s Note
SLPL Passed Leg
Session Laws
The session law (SL) chapter and year, e.g., Chapter 283 of 1999 or passed legislation (PL)
Sponsors Bills
Passed Leg
Session Laws
The member(s) who sponsored the legislation
Text Bills
Passed Leg
Session Laws
RCWs
WACs
Text of the document, as opposed to citations, captions, histories and notes

Document zone samples

Bill document

Example of zones in a bill document

Passed legislature document

Example of zones in a passed legislature document

Session law document

Example of zones in a session law document

RCW title digest

Example of zones in a RCW title digest

RCW chapter digest

Example of zones in a RCW chapter digest

RCW section

Example of zones in a RCW section

WAC title digest

Example of zones in a WAC title digest

WAC chapter digest

Example of zones in a WAC chapter digest

WAC section

Example of zones in a WAC section
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