A bill analysis is a summary of a bill written in layman's terms. According to the Senate Rules, in order for a piece of legislation to be heard on the Senate floor, a bill must be accompanied by, among other items, a bill analysis (Senate Rule 7.12(b)(10)).

A bill analysis is composed of three sections: Author's/Sponsor's Statement of Intent; Rulemaking Authority; and Section-by-Section Analysis. If the bill is amended in committee, a fourth section, entitled List of Committee Amendments, will be added to the BA.

• Author's/Sponsor's Statement of Intent: This section contains three segments: a statement of current law, the problem which initiated the legislation, and how the bill changes the law to solve the problem.
• Rulemaking Authority: This section explains which state-level governmental entity has been given the authority to make rules, on what subject, in which section of bill, and in which section or article of the law it will appear.
• Section-by-Section: This is a summary of proposed changes to each section or article of the law. These are broken up into sections in a bill, and analyzed accordingly. If the bill is substituted in committee, the Section-by-Section Analysis is updated to reflect the changes made by the substitute.
• List of Committee Amendments: In this section, amendments made in committee are reproduced in their entirety.

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