Citizen Advocate
You care about issues that affect your family, neighborhood, or community. Maybe it's education policy, property taxes, healthcare access, or criminal justice reform. BillBee helps you stay informed, show up at the right time, and make your voice heard in the Kansas Legislature.
This guide walks you through a practical workflow — from finding the bills that matter to you, to preparing testimony for a committee hearing.
Step 1: Find Bills That Matter to You
Start with Semantic Search to describe what you care about in plain language. You don't need to know bill numbers or legislative jargon.
Example searches:
- "bills that affect school funding in Kansas"
- "property tax changes for homeowners"
- "gun legislation"
- "healthcare coverage for mental health"
BillBee's AI-powered search understands your intent and finds relevant bills, even if they use different terminology than you do.
Filter by Policy Area
Once you see results, use policy category filters to narrow down to the topics you care about. Kansas legislation spans 15 policy categories, including Education, Healthcare, Taxation, Public Safety, and more.
Check the BeeScore
Every bill has a BeeScore — a 0-to-100 rating of how much real-world impact a bill is likely to have. This helps you focus your attention:
- 66-100 (High Impact): Bills that could significantly change policy, budgets, or rights
- 36-65 (Medium Impact): Noteworthy bills worth watching
- 0-35 (Low Impact): Routine or narrow-scope legislation
Sort your search results by BeeScore to find the bills most likely to affect your community. You can always dig into lower-scored bills later.
Step 2: Track the Bills You Care About
Once you find relevant bills, add them to your tracking list. BillBee will monitor their progress through the legislature and notify you of changes.
On the Free plan, you can track up to 3 bills. The Citizen plan raises that to 10, and the Professional plan offers unlimited tracking. See Subscription Tiers to compare.
Understand Where a Bill Stands
Each tracked bill shows its current status — from "Introduced" through committee hearings, floor votes, and potentially the Governor's desk. If you're not familiar with how the Kansas legislative process works, check out How the Kansas Legislature Works for a plain-language overview.
Step 3: Set Up Alerts
Don't miss critical moments. Configure email alerts so BillBee notifies you when:
- A bill's status changes (e.g., it passes committee and moves to the floor)
- A hearing is scheduled for a bill you're tracking
- A floor vote is scheduled
- An amendment is filed that changes the bill
- Vote results come in
Recommended Alert Settings for Citizens
On the Free plan, you'll get a daily digest email summarizing activity on your tracked bills.
On the Citizen plan or above, you can enable instant alerts for time-sensitive events like hearing schedules and vote results. Here's a good starting configuration:
- Hearing scheduled: Instant
- Status changes: Instant
- Vote results: Daily digest
- Amendments: Daily digest
Customize your preferences in Digest Settings.
Step 4: Stay on Top of the Calendar
Check the Calendar regularly to see upcoming hearings, session days, and key deadlines. You can:
- Switch between day, week, and month views to plan ahead
- See which committees are meeting and what bills are on their agenda
- Track important legislative deadlines like Turnaround Day (when bills must pass their chamber of origin)
Committee hearings are where citizens have the most direct influence. Hearings typically happen weekday mornings between 8:00 and 10:30 AM at the Capitol in Topeka. Check the Hearings page for details.
Step 5: Read AI Summaries Before a Hearing
Before attending or submitting testimony for a hearing, read the bill's AI-generated summaries to understand what it actually does:
- Short Summary — A quick overview to confirm this bill is relevant to you
- Medium Summary — A 1-3 paragraph explanation covering the main provisions
- Full Summary — A comprehensive breakdown including key provisions, stakeholder impact, fiscal implications, and effective date
Full summaries are available on all plans. On the Free plan, you can unlock 5 full summaries per day.
Step 6: Prepare and Deliver Testimony
When a bill you care about has a hearing, you can testify before the committee — in person, remotely, or in writing. Here's how to prepare:
- Read the full bill text and AI summary to understand exactly what the bill proposes
- Identify your position — proponent (for), opponent (against), or neutral (informational)
- Prepare brief, specific comments — Committees appreciate testimony that explains how the bill would personally affect you or your community
- Check the hearing details on the Calendar for time, room, and whether remote testimony is available
Types of Testimony
Kansas legislative committees accept several forms of testimony:
- In-person oral testimony — Appear before the committee at the Capitol
- Remote testimony — Some committees allow video or phone testimony
- Written-only testimony — Submit written comments without appearing
The most effective citizen testimony tells a personal story. Explain how the bill would affect you, your family, or your community with concrete examples. Committees hear from professional lobbyists all day — your personal perspective carries unique weight.
Step 7: Share What You've Learned
Found a bill your friends, neighbors, or community group should know about? Use BillBee's sharing features:
- Generate share cards — visual bill summaries optimized for social media
- Copy pre-formatted social media posts for Twitter/X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Bluesky
- Share a direct link to the bill on BillBee
This is a great way to rally community support for or against legislation that matters to you.
Recommended Plan
Most citizen advocates do well on the Free plan to start. When you find yourself wanting to track more than 3 bills or need instant alerts for hearings, the Citizen plan ($12/month) is a good fit.
Quick Reference
| Task | Where in BillBee |
|---|---|
| Find bills by topic | Search |
| Track a bill | Tracking Bills |
| Set up alerts | Email Alerts |
| Check hearing schedule | Hearings |
| Read bill summaries | AI Summaries |
| Share with others | Sharing Bills |
| Understand the process | Legislative Process |