Full Text Site Search of the Alaska State Legislative Majority Organization Web Site

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Webmaster Note: This Search Engine for the Majority Organization's Web Site is powered by Google. Updates are determined by how often Google indexes the content on this site. Your search results may not find documents created within the last few weeks.

Automatic "and" Queries

By default, only the pages that include all of your search terms are returned. There is no need to include "and" between terms.

For example, to find documents on legislation dealing with property assessment and taxation, simply type

To refine or narrow your search simply add more words to the search terms you have already entered. Your new query will return a smaller subset of the pages that were found for your original "too-broad" query.

"OR" Searches

To retrieve pages that include either word A or word B, use an uppercase OR between terms.

For example, to search for legislation on either education or insurance, just type

Stop Words

Most common words and characters are ignored. These are known as stop words as they tend to slow down searches without improving the quality of the results. These terms, such as "where" and "how", as well as certain single digits and single letters, are not included in searches unless you indicate that they are essential.

You can do this by using the ("+") sign in front of the term. Be sure to include a space before the plus sign, which can also be used in phrase searches.

For example, to search for Article I of the Alaska Constitution use:

Excluding Words

You can exclude a word from your search by putting a minus sign ("-") immediately in front of the term you want to avoid. (Be sure to include a space before the minus sign.)

For example, a search for sales tax excluding alcohol will return results not related to alcohol sales tax:

Search Terms in Context

Your search results will contains at least one excerpt of the keyword or phrase from the found web page, which shows how your search terms are used in context on that page. Your search terms are bolded, so you can tell at a glance whether the result is a page you want to visit.

Stemming

To provide the most accurate results, "stemming" or "wildcard" searches are not supported. In other words, exact searches are made for the words that you enter in the search box. Searching for ("rep") or ("rep*") will not yield "representation" or "reproduction." If in doubt, try both forms: ("representative") and ("representatives"), for instance.

Capitalization

Searches are not case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case. For example, searches for ("joe smith"), ("Joe Smith"), and ("jOe SmItH") will all return the same results.

Phrase Searches

You can search for phrases by adding quotation marks. Words enclosed in double quotes ("like this") will appear together in all returned documents exactly as you have entered them. Phrase searches using quotation marks are useful when searching for complete names of organizations or bill titles.

Certain characters serve as phrase connectors. Hyphens, slashes, periods, equal signs and apostrophes are recognized as phrase connectors. Phrase connectors work like quotes; for example, (right-of-way) is treated as a phrase even if the three words aren't in quotes.

Press Releases and Sponsor Statements

The most accurate way to find information on a particular piece of legislation is to type in the title of the bill or the headline of the press release in quotes as a phrase, rather than typing in the bill number itself. Although bill titles can be found on the Alaska State Bill Action and Status Inquiry System (BASIS), headlines for press releases aren't always known.

Sometimes headlines and bill titles don't produce the exact documents you are looking for due to abbreviations or changes in the wording. Using the bill number as a phrase in quotes, ("sb 102"), or the date of release ("March 10, 1999") will result in a list of documents that contain these phrases anywhere on the page. To further narrow your search, type in the document that you are looking for before the phrase for the bill number or date, (sponsor statement "sb 102") or (press release "March 10, 1999"). It is also helpful to understand the Filing Structure of how and where our files are saved, in order to search for specific file names.

During the 22nd Legislature we started naming our web files for each page with a different file extention. Because of this it is pretty much possible to refine your search to a specific legislature by searching for a specific filetype, depending on the Legislature you want to search through. If you are looking for documents from the 22nd Legislature, the file extention you would want to search for is the ".shtml" filetype. For the 21st Legislature and earlier the file extention is the ".htm" filetype. To search for a specific filetype you need to include the "filetype:ext" command with the appropriate filetype extention you want to search for, following your keyword or phrase.

For example, to find the sponsor statement for Senate Bill 102 during the 22nd Legislature just type

Printer Friendly PDF files

Maybe you need to quickly find documents that are printer friendly, since not all the pages on this site are compatible with all printers. Our search results also include Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) printer friendly files that can be printed from any printer exactly as they appear in your browser.

To indicate that a particular search result is a PDF file rather than a web page, [PDF] appears in blue text in front of the title. This lets you know that the program, Adobe Acrobat Reader, will launch to view the file. Click on the title link to the right of [PDF] to access the PDF document. If you prefer to view the PDF file as regular text simply click on the grey "Text version" link below the returned search result.

For example, to find sponsor statements or press releases in PDF form, use the same methods mentioned above, but following your keyword or phrase, include "filetype:pdf" in your search query:

Most browsers come with Adobe Acrobat Reader already installed, but if you do not have the current version or you do not have it installed at all, then visit the Browser Plug-Ins section of our Help page for easy instructions on how you can download and install it for free.

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It is possible to find the document you are looking for by simply typing it into the URL window on your browser. To do this you have to understand the filing structure of the site and how it is all organized.

Directories

Root Directory : http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/
The Root directory contains everything within this site. This is where our 7000-plus files are found on the internet. Everything prior to the 22nd Legislature existed only in this directory and there were very few other subdirectories containing files. All the member pages, committee pages, press releases, sponsor statements, archives, district information, and opinion/editorial articles, with a few exceptions, can be found here for the 20th, 19th & 18th Legislatures.

Webmaster Note: The link at the bottom of press releases, sponsor statements, and other information that says it will take you back to a legislator's home page will direct you to that legislator's most current information page. Essentially, if you are looking at a press release for Senator John Smith that came out during the 20th Legislature, the link at the bottom that says it will take you back to "Sen. Smith's Page" will direct you to Sen. Smith's 22nd Legislature page.

20thleg Directory : http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/20thleg/
The 20thleg directory does not contain any relevant information. During the 20th Legislature this directory was used as a back-up for certain files in case the original files were damaged or saved over. These files are either dated or they are incomplete and may not even show up in your browser window. If you find yourself in this directory you will most likely be automatically bounced out of it back to the root directory.

21stleg Directory : http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/21stleg/
The 21stleg directory is much the same as the 20thleg directory and does not contain much relevant information. This directory was used as a back-up directory during the 21st Legislation as well, but it does have a couple subdirectories containing information that may be useful.

Billbackup Subdirectory : http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/21stleg/billbackup/
This subdirectory is where you will find opinion/editorial articles and end-of-session information, but mainly just the PDF and supplemental information that were attached to press releases, sponsor statements and other information for the 21st Legislature documents.
Audio Subdirectory : http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/21stleg/audio/
This subdirectory is where you will find the audio clips that were used in the press releases for the 21st Legislature.

There is also a Members page in the 21stleg directory that will direct you to the individual pages for the Majority legislators of the 21st Legislature that were last updated before the end of the 21st Legislature. From there you can access sponsor statements, press releases, and other information for the 21st Legislature that are specific to those legislators. (http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/21stleg/index.htm)

22ndleg Directory : http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/22ndleg/
As the site began to grow and grow, we started organizing all of the documents for the 22nd Legislature into many subdirectories so they could be easy to locate. The 22ndleg directory itself contains all the individual pages for the Majority legislators in addition to our main press page, all the individual committee pages, all the legislation pages, all the biography pages for the individual Majority legislators, as well as the large portrait pages for the indivual Majority members. A members page is located in the 22ndleg directory that will guide you to any of the legislators for the 22nd Legislature by a variety of means, as well as the individual committee pages and legislation pages. (http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/22ndleg/members.shtml)

Press Subdirectory : http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/22ndleg/press/
This subdirectory contains the press releases for the 22nd Legislature including the archive pages for the 22nd Legislature press releases.
Spst Subdirectory : http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/22ndleg/spst/
This subdirectory contains all the sponsor statements and sectional analyses for the legislation proposed during the 22nd Legislature.
Info Subdirectory : http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/22ndleg/info/
This subdirectory contains the opinion/editorial articles, speeches, and district information that certain legislators had posted on their individual pages.
Poll Subdirectory : http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/22ndleg/poll/
This subdirectory contains the online surveys available during the 22nd Legislature.
Audio Subdirectory : http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/22ndleg/audio/
This subdirectory contains the audio clips used in the press releases for the 22nd Legislature as well as the archive pages for the 22nd Legislature auio clips.
PDF Subdirectory : http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/22ndleg/pdf/
This subdirectory contains the printer friendly PDF files associated with all the press release, sponsor statements, and other information for the 22nd Legislature.

Naming Conventions

From the beginning of the 20th Legislature, a file naming convention was developed to make it easier to sift through the vast number of files to find a particular file. This naming convention, for the most part, has now been standardized. Once you understand the naming convention and which directory the file exits in, it is fairly easy to track down the file you are looking for.

Press Releases : prlname101012000.ext
All the press releases for the past four years start with the letters "pr" followed by the last name of the legislator the press release was from, and a first initial if there were multiple same last names (smitht, smithp). The first number following the name is the number of the release for that day. Some legislators may come out with multiple press releases on the same day on several different issues (prjones1, prjones2, prjones3). The next two digits are for the month, followed by two digits for the day of the month, and then four digits for the year of the release. All press releases before January, 2001 ended in the extention ".htm" and all the press releases after January 2001 end in the extention ".shtml". Press releases before the 22nd Legislature can be found in the root directory. Press releases for the 22nd Legislature are found in the "press" subdirectory of the "22ndleg" directory.

Webmaster Note: If you are not having any luck finding press releases from 1997 or before try typing the year as two digits ("97") instead of the four digits ("1997") we currently use as the standard.

Sponsor Statements : spsthb00101012000.htm or spsthb001.shtml
Sponsor statements and sectional analyses from before the 22nd Legislature are found in the root directory and begin with either "spst" for sponsor statement, or "sect" for sectional analysis, followed by the two letters for either a Senate bill ("sb") or a House bill ("hb"). The following three digits indicate the bill number the statement corresponds to (005, 056, 348, etc.). The next eight digits comprise two digits for the month, two digits for the day, and four digits for the year of when the sponsor statement was created and posted on the web. For all sponsor statements before the 22nd Legislature the extention is ".htm". Sponsor statements and sectional analyses for the 22nd Legislature start the same but do not contain the eight digits representing the date it was created, and end in the extention ".shtml" (see example above). They are located in the "spst" subdirectory of the "22ndleg" directory.

Opinion/Editorial Articles : opedlname101012000.ext
Opinion/editorial files use the same naming convention as press releases, but use "oped" at the beginning rather than "pr" for press releases (see example above). Opinion/editorial files that were created before the 22nd Legislature can be found in the root directory. Opinion/editorial files for the 22nd Legislature are found in the "info" subdirectory of the "22ndleg" directory.

Audio Clips : lname101012000.ra
The audio files on this site are in Real Audio format and therefore always end in the extention ".ra". The naming convention is the same as that for press releases, but names do not contain any letters before the last name of the legislator who is speaking in the clip (see example above). Audio files before the 21st Legislature are found in the root directory. Audio files for the 21st Legislature and the 22nd Legislature are found in the "audio" subdirectory of their respective directory.

Printer Friendly PDF Files : prlname101012000.pdf
Although PDF files were used before the 22nd Legislature for supplemental information that could not be made into a web page, we didn't start creating printer friendly versions of all the new content on this site until the 22nd Legislature. PDF files use the same exact naming convention as the web page of which they are the printer version, but the only difference is they end in the extention ".pdf". 22nd Legislature PDF files are found in the "pdf" subdirectory of the "22ndleg" directory.

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If that document is still eluding you visit the Site Structure and Navigation sections on our Help page to find what you are looking for by navigating this site though the links. Or contact the Majority Webmasters directly by phone or email and we'll help you find it!

(907) 465-2671 (Jan-May)
(907) 269-0256 (Jun-Dec)
(907) 465-6547

The Official Web Site of the House and Senate Legislative Majorities
for the 22nd Alaska State Legislature
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