Because we like you

How about a little public service post today, instead of a snarky rant? We're full of snarky rants, but time's a'wasting and the information we're providing today – while not snarky – is valuable. Pay attention.

The West Virginia legislature's website is filled with useful and important information. If you're not familiar with it, it's not too late to get up to speed.

The website lists all members of both chambers, along with their political party affiliation, which district they represent (call your county clerk if you don't know your district), their statehouse mailing and e-mail addresses, and their Capitol phone number.

You'll also find dropdown menus under each tab with even more resources. Clicking on each menu item will take you to various areas of interest for each of the main tabs.

Click the Committee link, for instance, to navigate to each committee's daily agenda. You'll be able to see what's coming up for committees that are working on bills running through both houses.

So how do you find out about the bills? If you know the bill's number, you can enter it in a search box and another page with all the information about that proposed law appears – sponsors and co-sponsors, the bill's text, amendments to the bill and, after it's been voted on, the roll call vote.

We've been posting roll call vote lists on the Federation's Facebook page, and our readers are engaging in great numbers – commenting, liking, sharing, and making note of who votes how. Roll call votes are available to download as .pdf files, which you can then e-mail to interested contacts and groups. You can take a screenshot if you want to share it on social media.

But what if you don't know the bill's number? Enter a keyword – the topic, the name of the bill, a keyword – in the other search box on the Bill Status page. Entering the words "water storage tank" in the keyword search area produces results in paragraph form. You have to hunt for the bill number. If it's a House of Delegates bill, look for "hbXXXX." Senate bills are preceded by "sb" and have three numbers.

We've highlighted the bill number. You can then click on the blue line of text or enter the three digits in the bill number search box to get to the bill's page.

Unless you know your way around legal terminology, bills can be difficult to read. Nearly every bill affects some part of the West Virginia Code – all the laws that govern the Mountain State and her people. So when a bill says it affects, for example,  §17 A- 3 - 23  (Amended Code), you can then go look up that section in the Code to see what the legislature wants to change.

Also included under the Code tab are the texts of the West Virginia and U.S. Constitutions.

The Educational tab includes, among other things, the topic "How a Bill Becomes a Law."

Due to some of the shenanigans being pulled by the 82nd legislature, we feel some editing might need to be done to that section. We are particularly concerned with the Creating Public Charter Schools Act of 2015, which was tabled indefinitely in a Senate committee, but was then discharged from committee and sent to the floor – a rather unprecedented move by Senate President Bill Cole. The Charleston Gazette's Phill Kabler called it "ham-fisted."

Our hope is that, in providing this information, we've empowered you to find out more about the legislative process and which lawmakers have voted with you or against you. We feel the Republicans who are now in charge campaigned on false pretenses, promising measures that would attract businesses and grow jobs.

Keeping track of their votes will help you tremendously in 616 days, WHEN (not if!) you vote.