Hawaii Film Blog

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Legislative Alphabet Soup

Here's a glossary of frequently used abbreviations in the legislative process (and by extension, on this blog).

HOUSE:
HB = House Bill, a bill first introduced in the House
HD = House Draft, a specific version of a bill issued by a House committee that is assigned a draft number (e.g., "HD2"). Drafts start getting numbered after the first committee that hears a bill makes changes to it. Note that there can be House drafts of Senate bills after they cross over into the House.
TAC = House Committee on Tourism & Culture, currently chaired by Jerry Chang
EDB = House Committee on Economic Development & Business Concerns, currently chaired by Robert Herkes
FIN = House Committee on Finance, currently chaired by Dwight Takamine

SENATE:
SB = Senate Bill, a bill first introduced in the Senate
SD = Senate Draft, a specific version of a bill issued by a Senate committee that is assigned a draft number (e.g., "SD1"). Drafts start getting numbered after the first committee that hears a bill makes changes to it. Note that there can be Senate drafts of House bills after they cross over into the Senate.
MAT = Senate Committee on Media, Arts, Sciences & Technology, currently chaired by Carol Fukunaga
WAM = Senate Committee on Ways & Means (money), currently chaired by Brian Taniguchi

OTHER:
CD = Conference Draft, a specific version of a bill issued by the consensus of both houses that is assigned a draft number (e.g., "CD1")

IMPORTANT NOTE: Various drafts of a bill can differ wildly from each other. For example, after House committees TAC and EDB hear SB541, SD2, they may decide to revise it dramatically. This revised version of the bill would be called SB541, SD2, HD1 ("Senate Bill 541, Senate Draft 2, House Draft 1"). Please review each draft of a bill closely before testifying because it's possible that you may oppose SD2 of a particular bill, but then support HD1 of that same bill.

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