The Annie's List Blog
Navigating TLO 101
Gracie
February 19, 2019

What is TLO?
Texas Legislature Online (TLO) – capitol.texas.gov
TLO enables the public to view the status of legislation and to search bill text, amendment text, and bill information.
Finding a Specific Piece of Legislation
- If you know the bill number:
- On the TLO homepage, use the “Search Legislation” feature
- “Word/Phrase” will automatically be selected, switch the toggle to “Bill Number”
- Enter the bill number, including the applicable chamber. Ex. HB 151, SB 32
- The syntax for the bill number should be: CHAMBER BILL TYPE BILL SUFFIX
- CHAMBER = H (House) or S (Senate)
- BILL TYPE = B (Bill), R (Resolution), JR (Joint Resolution), CR (Concurrent Resolution)
- BILL SUFFIX = Up to 5-digit number
- The syntax for the bill number should be: CHAMBER BILL TYPE BILL SUFFIX
- If you don’t know the bill number:
- On the TLO homepage, use the “Search Legislation” feature
- “Word/Phrase” will automatically be selected
- Enter the word or phrase you are searching. Ex. School finance
Researching Legislation by a Specific Member
- On the TLO homepage, hover over the “House” tab
- Click “Members” and find the Member you are looking for
- On the Member’s page, scroll down to “Legislative Information”
- Here you can search by bills authored, coauthored, sponsored, etc.
- Within each link you’ll find the total number of bills authored, and can read the caption, last action (or the most recent step a bill has undergone in the legislative process), and be re-directed to each bill’s history page.
Researching Bills by Subject, Committee, etc.
- On the TLO homepage, find “Additional Searches”
- Click “Bill Search”
- Select the applicable Legislative Session, Chamber, and Bill Type
- Select the applicable Author and/or Sponsor
- House members appear before Senate members in the drop down bar
- Select the “Type” of authorship and/or sponsorship you’d like to search
- If searching for bills by subject matter, click
“Select subject criteria”
- Searchable by various issues.
- If searching for bills from a specific
committee, click “Committee”
- Be sure to designate if you’d like to search bills in committee, out of committee, or both.
- If searching for bills by legislative actions,
click “Actions”
- Common actions include: Effective immediately, Effective in 90 days, Sent to the Governor, Signed by the Governor, Vetoed by the Governor, etc.
Helpful Sites to Know
Texas Constitution and Statues (TCAS) – statutes.capitol.texas.gov
Here you can research statutes and read codes in full.
Legislative Reference Library (LRL) – lrl.texas.gov
Earlier legislative history can be found on LRL, as well as daily news
clips related to the legislature and its members.
Texas Ethics Commission (TEC) – ethics.state.tx.us
Research campaign finance reports, delve into election law, and find
information on how to make an open records request for certain financial
documents, etc.