Global Search
The global search gives you the power to search four key areas of the General Assembly:
Each one has their own set of criteria that they are looking for when searching the site. Additionally, the global search box accepts operators and phrases. To learn more about operators and phrases, see Advanced Features.
Global Search Areas
Bill Search
Searching for bills in the global search field works as it does in the bill search field (e.g. the homepage). Learn more about the extensive bill search capabilities in our Bill Search guide.
Legislators
To find a legislator, simply input a first name or last name into the global search box. It will look to see if either will find legislators that contain John in either their first or last name.
Example
A search for John would find both legislators "John Walsh" and "Kendra Johnson", as both contain “John” in either the first or last name.
Committees
When searching for a committee, the global search box will look for the committee name or chairman’s last name.
Example
If you were to search for either Finance or McDowell, the committees search results would find the Joint Finance Committee.
Task Forces
To find a task force, try searching for the task force name, the chairman’s last name, or the bill that formed the task force. The task force name search looks for a matching keyword in your search criteria. To find a task force by bill number, the global search box leverages the same features as bill search display code.
Example
Entering Mitchell, HCR 50, or Firefighter into the global search box might find you the Volunteer Firefighter Recruitment & Retention Task Force.
Search Results
When executing a search using the global search box, the results are grouped by type: Bills, Legislators, Committees, and Task Forces.
All of them show you the top five results, or less if there are less than five results. If more than five results are found for a given type, a “View More” link is available to show you all of the results found for that type.
Results by Type
Bills
By default, this group is sorted by the Legislation column in descending order and includes extra functionality that the other types do not. You are able to sort each column by clicking on the column title. The first click sorts the column in ascending order, the second click sorts that column in descending order, and a third click will return the results to their original sort order.
Legislators
The legislator search results are sorted by the legislator’s last name, in ascending order.
Committees
The committee search results are sorted by the committee name, in ascending order.
Task Forces
The task force search results are sorted by the task force name, in ascending order.
Refiners
Display
After executing a search, by default all result types are displayed. You can use the links in the sidebar to navigate the full view of those result types.
By Year
By default, the page displays only the results from the current General Assembly. Using the dropdown, you can select any of the ten previous General Assemblies, or choose to show all results from all ten previous General Assemblies.