Typically, when beginning legislative history research you will start with a statute number. But the legislative history documents are typically organized by bill number. In order to convert your statute number to a bill number:
(1) Look at the history or credit section at the bottom of the text of the statute. The numbers in the credit section identify the enacting session law for the staute and any amendments to the stautute. An example session law number is c. 99-101 s. 2. Each session law number has a corresponding bill number and you will need to decide which session laws/bills you want to research. Sometimes you want to look at the enacting law and all the amendments but sometimes you know a specific year and amendment that you need to research.
(2) If you are in Lexis or Westlaw and the session law has a hyperlink - click on it to see the text of the session law which also include a bill number in the heading information. A sample house bill number is HB No. 1051 and a senate bill is S.B. 1045.
(3) If you are in Lexis or Westlaw and the session law is NOT hyperlinked or if you are using online sunshine or print versions of the statutes you will have to look up the session law number either in print, using HeinOnline, on Laws of Florida (1997-current), or using a session law to bill number conversion table found within the Florida Statutes or the most recent edition online.
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