The new administration is causing a flurry of legislative actions at both the federal and state level. It is imperative that citizens are able to keep up with this activity. It’s important not only to know and understand how our government is changing, but also to have a voice in the process.
How can we keep up with all this legislative action?
The easiest way is to set up alerts with sites that monitor federal and state activity. Here are a few sites to get you started.
Federal Legislation
GovTrack.us monitors activity at the federal level. This site allows you to find your representatives and senators and get alerts on legislation associated with them. You can also search for subjects you are interested in following and get alerts on those topics, as well as set up alerts anytime a new bill or resolution is introduced.
Congress.gov is the official site to view legislative activity. Congress.gov allows you to see where pending bills are in the legislative process. You can also set up alerts and RSS feeds so you can follow a variety of Congressional activity and legislation (link is at the very bottom of the page).
Federal and State
LegiScan allows subscribers to follow both federal and one state’s legislative activity free. There is a fee for additional states and other services. You can subscribe to RSS feeds based on issues, searches, regions, and more.
State
Texas Legislature Online (MyTLO) is a great site to find out what is happening in the Texas Legislature. MyTLO allows you to create your own account to follow bills and other activity. There is also an RSS feed that you can sign-up to receive.
What if you are technically challenged and don’t want to set up an RSS feed or sign-up for an account? You can always call the Bill Status Hotline @ 1-877-824-7038 for a bill update.
Federal Executive Orders
Executive Orders from the Press Office allows visitors to read all of the executive orders that Donald Trump has issued since his inauguration on January 20, 2017. NOTE: There are reports of this site providing copies of executive orders that contain errors. Use with caution. The Federal Register has the official version of all executive orders, but it may take a few days for a new order to be posted.
These sites are some of the ways citizens can keep up with the dizzying array of legislative actions and executive orders generated by government legislatures. You can read it all or just pick those bills that have topics of interest. Either way these sites will help you keep current!
The Reporter 