After adjournment for the day, the Journal Clerk begins revising and editing the Daily Journal by adding details, and making corrections.
Journal Clerk prints out the Daily Journal.
The Daily Journal for the Floor Session is proofread and checked against LAWS Status and notes of business done during the day for consistency. They also proof the 2nd Reading of bills section, which is the source for the Committee of the Whole Report. This proofreading is done on the rostrum by the Bills Clerk, Status Clerk, Journal Clerk, and Bills Coordinator. It is done as soon as possible. A draft Daily Journal is produced and printed.
Proofing is usually done after the Floor Session adjourns but may be done the morning following the session day during busy periods
Once all editing is completed, the Journal Clerk runs the vote merge macro (MERGE), which inserts all vote record information and amendment text based on the vote sequence number (a style tag).
Governor's amendments and letter are merged into the document like all other amendments. Governor's amendments must be considered in both Chambers and appear in both Daily Journals.
When the Journal Clerk has accumulated roughly five draft Daily Journals they are submitted to the Secretary/Chief Clerk for final editing.
Corrections from the Secretary/Chief Clerk are written on the hard-copy of the draft Daily Journals and the group is returned to the Journal Clerk.
The Journal Clerk enters all corrections.
When all corrections are completed, the Journal Clerk reprints the Daily Journals to have them signed by the President/Speaker and the Secretary/Chief Clerk. A template letter (dates are changed to reflect Journals being processed) is read across the rostrum by the Secretary/Chief Clerk and is included in the Daily Journal for that day.
In addition to the original document, two copies are also printed. One copy is filed in the daily folder on the Rostrum with collected source/supplemental documents. Another copy is hand-delivered to the LSD Reference Center for later aggregation and binding. The official copy is sent to the Secretary of State for archiving.
A macro is run to create a PDF copy which is published on the web.
44.At the End of Legislative Session
The Legislative Reference Center collects all Daily Journals and compiles them into a bound volume.
Note: Vote information is extracted from the Journal to compile the “green” book, a list of all 2nd and 3rd Reading votes sorted in bill order. This green book could be an automatic extract.
Agendas describe what will be considered in each Chamber during 2nd and 3rd Readings (confirmation, consent calendar, etc.). The Agenda Helper Report from LAWS Status is run to show which bills (or resolutions) are available. The Secretary/Chief Clerk reviews the Agenda Helper Report with the President/Speaker to determine what will be included in each agenda. Items may be grouped by topics or other considerations. All items included in an agenda are updated in LAWS Status to enable generation and printing of agendas and updates to the public-access website.
45.Prior to Floor Session
Prior to the beginning of each Floor Session (usually the day before), the Secretary/Chief Clerk runs the Agenda Helper Report from LAWS Status to list all items available for 2nd and 3rd Reading.
Selected items are updated in LAWS Status (by Secretary/Chief Clerk) to reflect that they will be considered on the agenda and allow the agenda to be printed and made available to the public.
Once finalized, the Agenda Report is run to produce the agenda for each Chamber. The agenda is hand-delivered to the Print Shop, which then prints the agenda.
The agenda information is extracted. In the vote application, the Voting Clerk executes a function to pull agenda item information into the system to prepare for voting on the scheduled items during the next Floor Session.
The Voting Agenda is produced.
The extracted agenda information is shown on the vote display boards in each Chamber.
The Bills Distribution Clerk assembles the agenda packet the night before or morning of the legislative day. The agenda packet includes all bills and related Fiscal Notes that appear on the next day’s agenda.
The Bills Distribution Clerk (who may delegate to a page) places packets on members' desktops on the Chamber floor
The Chamber conducts 2nd and 3rd Readings of bills on the agenda. Voting happens very quickly during 3rd Reading. Members must pay attention and press their vote buttons at the time the bill is being voted on.
Closing the vote (clicking a button on the PC that runs the voting system) records all current votes and interfaces them to LAWS Status (a procedure runs from the voting system, which pushes data to the LAWS DB). Votes recorded during voting can be changed later by motion at the end of the legislative day, but the original vote record is not changed.
When the vote is recorded in the voting system, vote tabulation reports are generated and printed both on the rostrum and at the Secretary/Chief Clerk’s Office. The public may request photocopies of vote tabulation reports.
Note: Most votes require a simple majority, but a few require a supermajority. These are noted in LAWS Status. There is a problem with recording supermajority votes currently where LAWS Status may show a bill failed when it actually passed.
