The Senate says bill titles have to be accurate.

Under the permanent Senate rules adopted this session, a bill's title must "adequately and fairly reflect its subject matter."

In addition, if a bill is "materially modified" in committee to either expand or reduce its scope, or additional counties are added to a local bill, the title has to be changed as well.

When senators speak about a bill on the floor or introduce a motion to amend it, they are required to use the bill number and short title.

After the jump, the rules.

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Some bill titles should come with their own score.

As previously discussed, a short title can be descriptive or evasive. In some cases, it can be a sales pitch that sounds like it should have John Williams music and flags waving.

A few examples from this session:

Healthy Youth Act: Requires schools teach comprehensive sex education, with an opt-out provision for parents who prefer abstinence-only.

Healthy Families and Healthy Workplaces Act: Requires North Carolina companies to provide a certain number of paid sick days to employees.

Taxpayers Protection Act: Limits state spending to inflation plus the increase in population from the previous budget year.

Safer Communities Act: Expands hate crimes protection to include gender, age, sexual orientation and disability, real or perceived.

North Carolina Racial Justice Act: Allows racial discrimination to be taken into consideration when determining whether to impose the death penalty.

School Violence Prevention Act: Requires school districts to write anti-bullying policies.

Electoral Freedom Act: Reduces the number of signatures needed for a political party to form or unaffiliated candidates to get on the ballot.

House leaders don't send their bills to a black hole.

But they do put up roadblocks.

As noted previously, Senate leader Marc Basnight sends bills that he doesn't want to reach the floor to the Ways and Means Committee, which hasn't met since 2001.

In the House, Speaker Joe Hackney gives certain bills a "serial referral" — sending them to so many committees that it will be difficult for them to be approved in time for the crossover deadline.

So far, Hackney has sent 29 bills to three committees. They include such hot potatoes as pro-life license late, the line-item veto, term limits on the speakership, and a conscience clause for contraceptives.

One bill, which would put a constitutional ban on gay marriage up for a referendum, has been sent to four committees.

After the jump, the bills.

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Not sure what to name your bill?

Here's a well-worn technique: Name it for someone.

So far this session, three bills have been introduced in the legislature that are named for people or animals:

Davie's Law/Humane Euthanasia in Shelters: Prohibits animal shelters from using gas chambers for euthanasia. Named for a puppy who survived a gas chamber and was found in the Davie County landfill.

Jeanne Hopkins Lucas Act: Allows Durham police and sheriff's deputies to increase their retirement pension if they have received certain training. Named for a Durham state senator who died in 2007.

The Terri Schiavo Act: Studies whether the Department of Motor Vehicles should ask drivers whether they have a living will. Named for a Florida woman with brain damage who became the center of a national fight.

For this technique to work, it generally requires a certain level of awareness of the namesake to work. Both Davie and Terri Schiavo have been in the news, while Lucas was a former colleague of many legislators.

Who titles a bill?

It depends. Some state legislators write their own bill titles, while others are suggested by staff of the bill drafting division. In rare instances, special interest groups suggest a title for legislation they favor.

Every bill has two versions of its title. The long one is written like a sentence and can stretch to Faulknerian lengths, at times reaching as much as two pages. The short one is closer to a haiku, limited to 45 characters including spaces.

Gerry Cohen, head of the bill drafting division, said that short titles were originally limited to 36 characters because of software the legislature used in the 1970s. The length is now determined by the desire to keep titles under one line to save paper on the daily calendar.

Long titles sometimes make reference to every provision in the bill. Under House rules, titles cannot be changed on the floor, so that's one way to keep a bill from being changed too radically. (The same rule does not apply in the Senate.)

Short titles written by staffers are usually more descriptive, Cohen says. But he tells legislators that the title is their "best sales pitch" for a bill, and some take it to heart.

Previously: Bill title strategies for controversial subjects.

Some recent House bills:

H.B. 512: Incentives for Energy Conservation, Reps. Hugh Holliman, Pricey Harrison and Paul Luebke

H.B. 516: Increase Revenues Without Raising Taxes, Rep. Paul Stam

H.B. 518: Lottery Name Changed, Reps. John Blust, Thom Tillis, Ruth Samuelson and Darrell McCormick

H.B. 539: Merge Smart Start/More at Four, Reps. Ray Rapp, Rick Glazier, Bob England and Marvin Lucas

H.B. 586: Expand Voter-Owned Elections, Reps. Glazier, Deborah Ross, Rapp and Grier Martin

Recent House bills of note:

H.B. 414: Judicial Appointment/Voter Retention, Rep. Johnathan Rhyne

H.B. 421: Use of Deadly Force/SBI Investigations, Rep. Kelly Alexander

H.B. 427: Counties May Fund Charter Schools, Reps. Tim Moore, George Cleveland, Larry Brown and William Current

H.B. 430: Voter Identification, Reps. Moore, Current, Paul Stam and Ric Killian

H.B. 431: Abortion-Parental Consent Notarized, Reps. Mark Hilton and Pat McElraft

H.B. 432: Conscience Protection/Health Care Providers, Rep. Hilton