Oregon Secretary of State

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Legislative Bill Tracings

​​​​​​The Oregon State Archives online holdings contain completed tracings from 1931 to the present.
​Many bills have not had tracings completed. These are done by State Archives staff on a per request basis.

Legislative tracings are produced by the State Archives reference staff when a researcher requests legislative material. Tracings show the committees the bill passed through; the dates and page numbers in the minutes that the bill was discussed; either a listing or summary of the exhibits submitted in the committees during discussion of the bill; and a listing of the audio tapes, which constitute the verbatim record of discussion.

These documents are useful for pinpointing the committees and dates for a bill in the electronic version of the Legislative committee minutes. They can also be useful when orderi​ng copies of exhibits or audio tapes from the State Archives​.

Not all bills from the regular sessions are represented in these tracings, but only those bills for which the reference staff has compiled a tracing.

The State Archives also has tracings for bills from the 1989 and prior sessions. For information contact the reference staff​.
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​​If a bill has not been traced, you can examine the legislative committee minutes by using the bill's measure ​history from the Oregon State Legislature's website. The measure histories provide a chronological summary of activity relating to the bill as it went through the legislative process.

Research measure histories at the Legislature's Bills and Laws page. Select the session of interest then the bill number from the measure histories.

When examining a bill's measure history, pay ​attention to:
  1. ​The committees that dealt with the bill; and
  2. The dates public hearings and work sessions were held on the bill.
In most cases there will be a large number of measure histories in bill number order on the same Web page. You may find it convenient to copy and paste your bill's measure history to a text document before returning to the legislative minutes section of this website.

You can requ​est a tracing by a reference archivist​. Research time is billed (see fees). While bills vary in size and complexity, the typical bill tracing takes about one hour to compile.

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Search legislative bill tracings

Ordering Records Listed in Tracings

To get copies of records listed in the legislative bill tracings.

Search Tips

Search the State Archives online holdings ​for specific legislative bill tracings:

  1. Select "Title (Free Text Part) " from the dropdown menu under "Search By." Enter your search term in the "Equal To" field to the right with underscores ( _ ) separating each word. You can search by year, bill number or both. Examples: 1983_*; 1983_SB_460* ; Senate_Judiciary_*_Tape4_*1999*. Leave other search fields blank unless searching for audio . Note: to search for audio files, see step 3.
  2. The wildcard character ( * ) can be used before or after a word and is useful for viewing all associated records relating to a specific bill. Examples: House_Judiciary*; House_Judiciary_*_1981; 1981_HB_*; House_Jud*
  3. Audio recordings are titled by the committee name, rather than the bill number. If you are searching for audio recordings, and if the committee is known, enter the committee name separated by underscores. Example: *House_Judiciary_* In the second dropdown menu, select “Electronic Document Type.” Enter in mp3 in the “Equal To” field. Note: there are no spaces or underscores between Tape Numbers and Tape Sides. Examples: Senate_Judiciary_Tape4*; Senate_Judiciary_Tape139_SideA* or House_Judiciary_Tape12_Side1*
  4. Click the "Search" button to start the search. Note: only the first 100 search results are displayed. It may be necessary to refine the search terms.
  5. On the results screen, click the title to bring up the details of the tracing. Click the "View/Download" button in the upper right and select either "View" to bring up the document in the browser or "Download" to save a copy to your local computer.
  6. You can start over at any time by clicking the "Search" button in the upper left.
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Advanced Searches

Advanced search by topic or subject:

  1. Select "Notes Word" from the drop down under "Search By."
  2. Enter your keyword or topic in the "Equal To" search field on the right, then click search.

Get started searching >

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Request a Record

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Related Resources

Search legislative bill tracings >

​Legislative minutes and tape logs >

Oregon Legislative Records Guide >

Oregon Legislators and Staff Guide >​​