To get started, find a story of interest to you.

Go to the Kansas Liberty Week in Review archives (Week in Review tab).

http://kansasliberty.com/LibertyUpdate

Scroll down and find the latest Week in Review that has a subject of interest for you in the description section and click on the image to view that week's Week in Review.

Click on the [ Read more... ] at the end of the paragraph about the subject which will take you to the complete story.

You will most likely quickly find a link to the actual legislation passed in the senate or the house via a bill number.

In general, bills are voted on twice -- once in General Orders (also called Committee of the Whole) where debate and amendments are permitted. The second vote occurs generally the next day -- in Final Action, where usually up or down votes only are allowed.

If you want to read specifics about what happened during a floor debate, go to www.kslegislature.org, and you will see in the bottom of the pink column on the right a "Track a Bill" edit box.  Enter the bill number and click on the search button.

You will now see the full history on the bill and what happened to it on specific dates. At the bottom is a link to help you find out what the acronyms mean. SJ or SH is the Senate Journal or the House Journal accordingly, with the page number listed next to it.  (Both journal page numbers begin at one at the beginning of the session.)

Note the date of activity involving your interest. On the far left of the page, there is a link for "Journals."  Click on this link and then select the date of activity of your interest, the appropriate House as noted in the history and click on "Get Journal."

You can now go directly to the page number and gather your information.

Other interesting information -- sometimes legislators will vote differently on the same bill at different times, and often times it tells a story.

The General Orders vote will also tell you what attempts at amendments were made, who gutted the bill if applicable, and sometimes what the vote results were if there was a "roll call vote."

The Final Action vote might display some explanations of votes by legislators that will often tell a tale. Often several legislators will join together on an explanation of vote.