According to Joint Rule 24 (b)(1)(A), every legislator is allowed to submit five bill requests each session. These five bill requests are in addition to any appropriation, committee-approved, or sunset bills that a legislator may choose to carry and must be submitted by the bill request deadlines. (See “The 2026 Legislative Session Is Comin’ in Hot”, posted September 19, 2025.)  But in order to keep these five bill requests, a legislator’s bill requests must also meet specific bill filing deadlines.

Filing bills and introduction deadlines

Bill requests may be forfeited if the request does not meet specific filing deadlines.*  Prior to the start of each session, each legislator must decide which bill request will be their prefile bill (filed a few days prior to the start of session to be ready for introduction on the first day of session) and which two bill requests will meet the other early bill introduction deadlines. In addition, each legislator must also decide at some point which two bills will meet the regular bill filing deadlines. The filing deadline for prefile bills is, by rule, five days prior to the start of session. Each legislator must have one bill delivered to the front desk of the House or the Senate by this date or forfeit a bill request.*

Bill orders

A legislator’s bill order is the order in which their bills are filed for introduction. Joint Rule 23 (a) says that a legislator should choose a prefile bill and two early bills from the requests submitted by the December 1 request deadline. The rule also allows a legislator to choose a bill request submitted after this early request deadline to meet the early bill introduction deadlines, if needed.

A legislator’s early bill requests usually are filed as their early bills because these requests were submitted earlier and, therefore, are more likely to be further along in the drafting process than a bill request submitted later. But sometimes an early bill request may be more complicated than expected. In this case, the legislator may choose a relatively simple regular bill request (i.e., a request submitted after the first bill request deadline and before the regular bill request deadline of the 7^th day of session) to be one of their bills filed with the House or Senate in time to meet an early bill filing deadline, leaving the legislator with a little more time to work on the more complicated bill request.

The Office of Legislative Legal Services encourages legislators to designate their prefile bill and other early bills (i.e., the bill order) as soon as possible in early December so that the office can prioritize the drafting of these bills accordingly. If the office does not have a legislator’s bill order on record, it will contact the legislator for this information and will continue contacting the legislator until the information is received.

The House and Senate early and regular deadlines for filing bills for introduction vary by chamber:

Click here for a link to the 2026 Deadline Schedule.

*  A legislator can ask for permission from the House or Senate Committee on Delayed Bills, whichever is appropriate, to submit additional bill requests or to extend a bill deadline to a different date.