How to Read A Bill
A strategy for making it easier to read and understand legislation
Reading proposed legislation can seem really daunting. Between the dense text, complicated jargon, and horrible online formatting, it’s easy to feel like legislative advocacy is totally inaccessible. Here is a simple, quick way to skim a bill and get a sense of what it says. The basic strategy is to check for these four things:
Who it applies to
What they must or can’t do
What happens if they do it anyway
Who it doesn’t apply to.
That’s really all you need to know at first! Things like the findings (where it’s detailed why legislators think we should have this new law) and enforcement and oversight can be important to know once you’ve decided you really want to get involved with a specific topic. If you’re just trying to find out what a bill you heard about says, though, you can skip over that for now. The big goal for your first look at a bill should be figuring out if it does what you’re being told it does, in the way you’re being told it will.
Two thoughts to start you off: First, don’t be scared by how long a bill looks! Most animal-related bills are actually pretty short, and the majority of the length on paper comes from the formatting and line spacing and stuff like bulleted lists. When everything is nested under something else in subsections, the bill ends up looking way longer than it actually is.
Second, taking notes as you read through a bill can be incredibly helpful. It’s way easier than trying to remember everything at the end. It doesn’t have to be comprehensive - just enough to help jog your memory once you’ve read the whole thing. I always prefer to have notes to look over because then I can compare them directly to what I’m being told the bill will do, and see if they match up. If what’s being messaged to the public is different from what the bill actually would do, that’s worth some further scrutiny.
Once you’ve identified the types of information you want to look for in a bill, you then next need to know where to look for them. Here are the sections you’ll want to read and what you’ll want to consider in each.
“Definitions”
This section is usually - but not always - the first, and it’s where the key terms relevant to what the bill would do should be defined. Read these first, even if they’re not at the top. In order to know what a bill does, you have to know how it defines the animals / people / businesses that will be impacted. The terms in a law don’t always mean what you’d expect, especially with regard to animals. They’re often defined in specific ways to limit the scope of the legislation, and so just assuming a meaning based on common sense can be very misleading.
Notice I said that terms should be defined in a bill? That’s because they aren’t, always, and that’s also important! Like a regular reader, legislators sometimes assume when writing a bill that a word has a common sense meaning and they don’t need to define it. That can get really tricky very fast, since with a lot of words, a difference in how a word is defined can really change what a law does. Plus, another definition of that term might exist in a different law, and without a specific definition in this context the other one would end up being used.
For example: Let’s suppose a bill is written to require all “domestic animals” to be protected from rabies through a vaccine. The legislator is thinking of dogs and cats when writing the bill, and assumes that is self explanatory. But what happens if there’s another law somewhere in the state that defines domestic animals as “all animals bred for companionship that live in the home, including birds, reptiles, and small mammals”? Suddenly you’re looking at a bill that, if passed into law, would create a legal requirement for pet owners to vaccinate species that literally can’t get rabies. That’s why definitions matter so much, and why it’s worth noting when key terms in a bill aren’t clearly defined—it might mean the bill would do a lot of stuff that the sponsor didn’t intend when writing it, and that might not be good for the animals it impacts.
“Prohibitions” / “Prohibited Acts”
This is generally the section you want to look for in animal-based legislation to find out what a bill would actually do or change. Not all proposed pieces of legislation have this section. If they’re doing something new or changing a framework, the section titles will represent that. However, most new animal-related legislation in the United States tends to be framed as adding new restrictions or prohibiting a type of action, so it’s a safe bet to start by looking for “prohibitions” to understand what impact the bill would have.
This is where you want to look at what the bill actually would do. Not what the messaging about what the bill says it’ll do, or what the name implies. What’s in black and white? It’s really common for people to assume that a bill about solving Contentious Issue A will of course address Obvious Problem B, but if it’s not in the bill in writing, and the language isn’t specific enough, that isn’t going to happen!
You also want to use this section to figure out what the scope of the bill is—this is why starting with the definitions matters! The author of the bill obviously has a specific goal and/or intent in writing it. When the written text of the prohibition section is applied to the specific entities as defined in the definition section, does it look like that’ll actually happen? Or will it do more or less than seems to be intended, because the definitions aren’t right for the intended purpose? If the prohibitions and the definitions of the people / businesses / animals impacted by the prohibitions aren’t lined up in a way that works, the bill has some issues.
“Exemptions”
This will either be its own section, or nested in a subsection as part of the “Prohibitions” section. (If the latter is the case, look for language like “the restrictions in Section X will not apply to…” followed by a bunch of indented lines) This is the bit where the bill tells you who the proposed changes wouldn’t apply to—and what, if any, requirements they have to meet in order to get that exemption.
It’s important with any animal-related bill to pay specific attention to what entities get exemptions, why, and how. Exemptions should be fair, and require any entity that gets an exemption to have to meet the same types of standards as everyone else who gets it. It’s worth noting if there’s any apparent unevenness within the exemptions and looking more closely at that. For instance: why do Entities A and B not have to do anything except exist to get an exemption, but Entity C would have to jump through a lot of hoops, and Entity D literally can’t get an exemption? Is there a reason for that stated in the bill, and does it seem reasonable / appropriate / accurate? A lot of times exemptions regarding animal legislation aren’t always completely logical; they can be based on misinformation or influenced by politics and lobbying.
“Penalties”
This is the area that details what happens if the bill is passed into law and someone breaks the new prohibitions set forth in it. This is often one of the hardest parts of a bill to read, because it references other laws or the civil code without quoting them, so you don’t need to spend too much time on it. Mostly, it’s worth noting if the proposed penalty matches the severity of the violation. Are the two commensurate? Is the law talking about fines, animal seizures, or jail time? Are minor violations resulting in seriously harsh penalties? Are serious or repeat violations being penalized by such a minor slap on the wrist that it doesn’t seem like it’ll do anything to make people stop that action? That’s the bit to try to parse out as best you can, because to work well a law has to have appropriate penalties and functional enforcement.
Now take a second and look at your notes, and compare what you knew about the bill before reading it and what you know about it now. Does the way it’s being promoted match what the bill actually says? Are legislators and advocacy groups talking about the impacts accurately? Are they leaving anything out? If something is being skipped over in the messaging, why would that be? It’s always worth doing this little double-check at the end, because it’ll give you insight into what parts of it the legislators think people will care about, and what parts they think they public won’t think are important or might dislike.
That’s it! You’ve now read a bill! The hard part is over, and you’ve come out of it with a much better understanding of the piece of proposed legislation than most people ever will have. What’s left? Just looking through your notes and deciding how you feel about the bill. Your opinion at the end doesn’t have to be a binary between loving it or not wanting it to pass: it’s completely normal to support the concept but have concerns about issues in the text of the bill, to or be confused about how it’s supposed to work, or to not understand why the proposed legislation is needed and want to learn more.
If after this work you’re left with strong questions about the bill, it’s completely normal and appropriate to ask for more information! I find that it’s most useful to direct questions to the source you learned about the bill from (like a blog or newspaper), professional or trade associations that the bill would impact, and the office of the legislator sponsoring the bill. It may feel daunting to reach out and ask those sorts of questions, but it’s important! People need to understand what they’re being asked to vote for or have their representatives support, and the current legislative process is set up in a way that often makes it feel really inaccessible: by asking your questions and sharing what you learn, you’re likely to help out a bunch of other people who also wanted more information too.