Guides

How to follow the Washington State Legislature

How the Legislature works, and how to watch it happen without living on eight government websites. Free to read, no account needed.

🚀Start here

Getting started with OlympiaTrack

Set up the first tracking list, turn on the alerts that matter, and put the dashboard and the client report to work, in about ten minutes.

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Using OlympiaTrack

How to do the things this app is for.

📋Video soon

Client reports, and how to send them on a schedule

Build the document a client actually reads, sort it by your own priorities, and put it on a standing weekly send that rebuilds itself from your lists.

👥Video soon

Working as a team: seats, roles and who can see what

Seats, the three roles, what a member can see by default, how one list is shared outside the workspace, and how to hand a list over when somebody changes jobs.

🧮Video soon

Scorecards and whip counts

How somebody has voted versus how they will vote: two different questions, two different tools, and the caveats worth knowing before you quote either to a client.

🔔Video soon

Alerts: every way OlympiaTrack tells you something happened

Every alert this app can send, and an honest view of which ones to actually turn on.

Tracking

Following a bill through a session.

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How to track a bill in Washington State

Every way to follow a Washington State bill: the free tools the Legislature gives you, where they leave you doing the work by hand, and how to make a bill tell you when it moves.

The process

How Olympia actually works.

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How a bill becomes a law in Washington, and how to follow one

The real path a bill takes through the Washington State Legislature, stage by stage, with what you should be watching in OlympiaTrack at each one.

Session

The calendar, the cutoffs, and what they kill.

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Session dates, cutoffs, and spotting a bill about to die

When the Washington Legislature meets, every cutoff deadline a bill has to clear, the exemptions that let some ignore them, and how to see which of your bills are at risk.

Hearings

Getting heard by a committee.

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How to testify at the Washington State Legislature

How to sign in and testify on a Washington bill, in person or remotely, how to know a hearing is coming before it is too late, and how to walk in with something written.

Statutes

RCW, WAC, and which one governs what.

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RCW vs WAC, and how to watch the law your clients live under

The Revised Code is the law the Legislature passes; the Administrative Code is the rules agencies write under it. How they fit together, and how to watch both.

The basics

The vocabulary, so nothing reads as jargon.

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How to read a Washington bill number

What HB, SB, SHB, ESHB and 2SHB actually mean, why a bill’s number grows as it moves, and how to tell whether the version in front of you is the one you read last month.

Data

What the whole legislative record shows.

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Where bills actually die in Olympia

Most Washington bills never become law. Using the full legislative record back to 1991, here is where they actually stop, and what that means for the bill you are tracking.

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Which Washington legislators break with their party

Counted from every recorded floor vote of the 2023-24 biennium: who breaks with their own caucus, who crosses the aisle, and why those are two different lists.

More on the way. If there’s something about the Legislature you keep having to explain to people, tell us and we’ll write it up. support@olympiatrack.com.