Indiana General Assembly Website Primer

As with anything government-related, the Indiana General Assembly (IGA) website can be both confusing and overwhelming. What follows is a quick guide to finding what is important.  

This is designed for navigating the IGA website from desktop/laptop computer.  There are just too many ways to access the Internet to address all of them.  If you visit the IGA site on your phone the biggest difference (other the screen size) is the menus that are at the top of the page on your computer will be in drop-down menus on your phone.

As with any website, hit the home button if you need to get out of the rabbit hole you went down.  Worse comes to worse, close the tab and start over.  

Also, some things open up in a separate tab when navigating the site, some things don’t.  Again, not incredibly user-friendly.  There are a lot of tabs and links to click.

From the “Session” navigation menu item (highlighted in green in the above screenshot) you can access the following:

The IGA website provides access to both “live” as well as “recorded” archived legislative proceedings.

All hearings and activity in the Senate/House chambers are available on live video.  Clicking “Livestreams” will bring up all livestreams.  “Select a livestream” allows you to choose which one.  Knowing when and where a specific committee meets will be covered later.  This allows you to see the legislative process as it happens.  The downside to “Livestream” is you will sit through other bills up for a hearing such as “Racehorses on steroids” and “Fence-height requirements for establishments that sell alcohol and have outdoor seating.”

All “Livestreams” are later (usually 1-2 days) archived and can be viewed anytime.  By selecting “Recordings” you will have a drop-down menu and other filters to narrow your search.  An example would be filtering on “Senate Standing”, then use the drop-down to find the specific committee and date.  The big advantage to viewing archived videos: the ability to fast-forward.  Also, when possible, email updates will go out to ISRPA members with the time-points on the videos of interest.  “2^nd Amendment-related bill discussion starts at the 0:45:00 minute mark on the video, 1:05:00 the NRA representative testifies, 1:10:00 ISRPA testimony.”

Click the “More” option.  This brings you to a page where you can toggle between House and Senate.  This has calendars, bill lists, and daily actions.

Click “Standing Committees.”  The brings up all Senate and House Committees.  Each one is a hyperlink which brings up:

• Dates and times of meetings/hearings for specific bills
• All bills assigned to the committee 
• Each member of the committee

Clicking on the committee member brings up information on that specific legislator.  From there you can find out how to contact them.  You can contact any legislator, not just yours.  Action in committees happens very fast.  Look for email updates with information.

Clicking “Bills” brings up all the bills introduced in both the Senate and House.  This is a long list, with hundreds of bills every year.  The “Legislation Currently Tracked by ISRPA” page will help narrow the focus.

Type in your address to identify your State Senator and Representative. It is important to let our elected representatives we are here, and we pay attention.