Summary Writing - Past Key Vote Summaries


Past Summaries of the Same Bill

Past summaries are a great resources for achieving consistency. This is most useful when a previous vote on the same legislation has already been summarized. For example, if we selected the House Passage of a bill, and we later select the Senate Conference Report Vote, you would undoubtedly look at the summary for the House Passage for guidance. Summaries for different versions of the same bill should be as consistent as possible. Meaning, if the language between the two bill texts is exactly the same, the language in your summary should be exactly the same as the summary of the previous vote. However, if there are any differences between the bill texts, the summary should be amended to reflect those differences. Here is an example: HB 3 from New Mexico during a special session in 2009. We selected both the House Passage and the Senate Passage with Amendment votes. This means there are two different versions of the bill text, and therefore possible differences between the two summaries. Here is the full bill summary for the House Passage vote:

Here is the full summary for Senate Passage with Amendment:

At first glance, they appear to be exactly the same. This is because they are almost exactly the same. Take a look at the first highlight of each paired together (bold added for emphasis):

House Passage Summary:

Senate Passage Summary:

The only difference is one figure: the Senate Passage with Amendment summary transfers $68 million from this Fund, whereas the House transfers only $60 million, which in turn affected the totals ($114.84 million for the Senate Passage with Amendment and $106.84 million for the House Passage). Aside from that, the summaries are exactly the same.

Past Summaries from the Same State
Legislatures will often attempt to pass legislation in multiple sessions, over the course of several years. You may want to browse past votes that we have covered on our website. Here is an example: S 1186 from Idaho during the 2009 session. This is one of many highway financing bills to come out of this state. This is the final version of the summary:


Compare that summary with the final version of another highway financing bill from Idaho during the 2008 session (H 567):

Notice that some of the highlights and the wording are exactly the same as S 1186. Of course there are differences between the two bills, and that is reflected in the summaries of each. The most notable difference is that H 567 actually specifies the projects that may be funded using bond revenue; S 1186 does not list any specific highway project. The amount of money specified is also different: the total amount of authorized in H 567 is $134 million, whereas the total amount authorized in S 1186 is only $82 million. The amount transferred from the State Highway Account to the GARVEE Service Fund is also different: $3.3 million in H 567 and $4 million in S 1186. If you disregard those differences, the two summaries are identical in terms of both language and format.

Past Summaries from Other States
Issues frequently transcend state borders, and legislatures across the country will take up similar or even the same legislation. If you encounter this, you should attempt to duplicate what information is applicable to the summary that you are writing. Here is an example SB 5599 from Washington during the 2009 session. This proposal was introduced in conjuncture with a number of other states to start awarding their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote in a presidential election. This is the final version of the summary:

The fact that other states were taking up this same proposal suggests that summaries from other states ought to be modeled after each other. One of those states was Colorado, where it was introduced as HB 1299. This is what the final summary looks like:

As you can see, the summaries are almost identical. The only differences are the names of the states and the citations.

While utilizing past summaries can be helpful, you will find that some past summaries in different states will be dramatically different, even though they are addressing the same issue. When you encounter this, it is best not to rely on that summary for assistance. Here is an example: HB 71 from Illinois from the 2009 session. This bill tackles the issue of text messaging while driving, of which we have seen a surge in recent years throughout the country. This is the final version of the summary:

This summary appears to be relatively straightforward. If you were writing a summary of a bill from Utah that also prohibits text messaging while driving, you might assume that this summary would be a suitable template. However, take a look at the final summary for HB 290 from Utah during the 2009 session:

Though the overall topic of the bills was the same, in substance the bills were quite different. In this situation, the Illinois summary would not be helpful when summarizing the Utah bill.


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