How to use “My Bills”
Once on the home page, you will find the “New Bills” section directly under the welcome message. Here, you will find all environmentally-related measures that have been entered into Protect New Mexico. During the Legislative Session, new bills are entered daily — so be sure to check the site frequently to keep up to date on the issues you care about. The “New Bills” section looks like this:
By default, each measure is searchable by several criteria, which are displayed at the top of the “New Bills” section. You can sort new bills one column at a time, or by using multiple search features at once. To sort using multiple columns, hold the SHIFT key and click multiple headings. The default column headings and search functions are as follows:
- Year: The year column indicates what year the measure was introduced at the New Mexico Legislative Session. You can sort results by year (in numerical order) by clicking the small arrow to the right of the “Year” column header. If you only want to see measures that were introduced in a specific year (for example, only 2013), you can also filter all measures by using the drop down box titled “Year” under the main “New Bills” heading. Selecting the option “all” will allow you to see all years, while selecting a specific year will allow you to see measures only introduced the year you select.
- Impact: The “Impact” heading is intended to help users sort through bills more efficiently and help you to determine whether or not you want to add a measure to your personal tracker. These headings indicate the relative impact level a measure might have on our environment (small, medium, or large impact). NOTE: these ratings do not indicate whether the measure has a positive or negative impact — only the scale of the impact. To sort the list by the impact rating, click the arrows to the right of the “Impact” column header. Want to know what each impact rating means? Click here for the Tutorial.
- Bill # & Name: Measures entered into the system are automatically listed in numerical and alphabetical order by a measure’s number and name. If you are searching for a specific bill number or name, you can click the arrows to the right of the “Bill # & Name” column header to sort the list.
- Sponsor: Like the”Bill # & Name” header, all measures can also be sorted by the measure’s sponsor. Clicking the arrows to the right of the “Sponsor” column header will sort the list alphabetically by sponsor.
- My Bills: If you are signed in to Protect New Mexico, you will also see a “My Bills” column header. This column will display bills that you have added to your personal tracker, as well as bills that you have not added. Clicking the arrows to the right of the “My Bills” column header will allow you to sort all measures by this indicator.
- Keyword: By typing search words into the keyword box under the main “New Bills” heading, you can also filter all bills by your own customized phrases or topics. For example, if you want to find bills that have “energy efficiency” in the title, enter “energy efficiency” into the keyword box.
Customizing “My Bills” Columns:
In addition to the default column headings listed above, you can also customize column headings to add or remove additional search functions. To change or customize your column headings, click the “Change Columns” button next to the keyword search box. Then, check additional search functions to add them as column headings. Uncheck search functions to remove them from column headings.
There are also two additional column headings that are not listed as default options that can be added:
- Issues. Each measure is assigneded to one or more issue areas that it might affect. Once this column is added, you can sort or search by issue area by clicking the arrow to the right of the “Issue” column header. You can also filter by typing issue keywords (ex. water) into the keyword box, or by clicking individual issue areas in the column itself. This will bring you directly to the issue page.
- Legislative Link. By adding this column, you will have access to each measure’s page on the NMLegis.gov website. This could be a helpful tool if you want more information on a measure, or want to view information about a bill on the State Legislature’s website.
Related Tutorials: