Researching Legislative History
Nature and Scope of Legislative History Research and Documentation
A. What is a legislative history?
It is the official documentary record of the passage of a proposed statute - often involving multiple bills or resolutions - through the successive stages of the legislative process. At the federal level of government this process formally commences with the introduction of a measure in Congress by a Senator or Representative and unless terminating short of enactment, the most common outcome, concludes with a Presidential signing into law or veto. For major initiatives, however, the documentary record frequently begins before the introduction of a bill, perhaps with a background Congressional investigative study or committee hearing from a previous Congress or a draft of proposed legislation by the President.
B. What are the major purposes of legislative history research and how do they affect the scope and types of material selected for consultation?
1. The legislative history record of a statute is consulted by the courts, Congress, government agencies, legal scholars and others in an effort to clarify the legislative intent of Congress when the meaning of a legislative provision cannot be gleaned from the language of the statute itself. Although a legislative history is not legally binding it may influence judicial opinion or the course of future Congressional lawmaking. It may also serve the broader purpose of illuminating the social and political context from which a statute emerged and so lead a researcher to canvass not only the full complement of official legislative history publications but also the sometimes insightful commentary and analysis of unofficial secondary sources as well - law reviews, monographic studies, newspaper articles etc..
2. If interest is limited to the meaning of a particular section or subsection of a statute, a researcher may choose to consult only those Congressional sources that treat specific provisions in detail, primarily committee reports and to a lesser extent House and Senate floor debate from the Congressional Record. This is the most common approach to legislative history investigation adopted by the courts and those seeking to influence judicial interpretation of statutes.
3. Sometimes the interest of a legislative history researcher is narrower still, concerned with the documentary trail of a current bill but only as an indicator of its present status in the legislative processs. Has it been reported out of committee? Has it been debated or amended on the floor of the House or Senate? Alternatively, the focus of interest could well be the documentary record, not of a statute, but that of an unenacted legislaive measure from a past Congress.In either of these research scenarios it is “bill tracking” sources that should be consulted.
C. What is the typical sequence of steps in the Congressional legislative process and what are the legislative history documents normally associated with each step?
Legislative Steps |
Legislative History Publication
Types |
| Legislation introduced by member(s) of Congress | House & Senate Bills and Resolutions; perhaps pre-introduction Exec. Branch draft legislation as House or Senate Document or an investigative Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report* |
| Referral for review to either whole committee or subcommittee and perhaps to multiple committees | Committee Print - background study or research report often prepared by or for a subcommittee |
| Hearings - Q & A and/or submitted testimony expressing views of Congressional witnesses | |
| Markup session to make bill changes and additions | |
| Bill ordered to be reported by full committee to chamber of origin | Committee Report - describes purpose and scope of bill, provides section by section analysis, discusses proposed amendments, if any, and includes dissenting member views |
| Floor debate, approval of possible amendments and vote on passage | Congressional Record - includes debate transcripts, Extension of Remarks, Daily Digest, History of Bills and Resolutions and vote tallies |
| Referral to other chamber if no similar bill under consideration there. Conference committee formed to reconcile differences if measures passed by House and Senate significantly disagree | Conference Report - compromise recommendations, if agreement reached, by House and Senate committee conferees. Appears in Congressional Record and also often published as House Report. |
| Enrolled bill sent to President if conference report approved and bill passed by both House and Senate | Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents - contains signing or veto messages. |
| * Not an "official" legislative history document but often consulted by researchers for useful background information concerning proposed legislation | |
Comprehensive accounts of the rules and procedures governing the Congressional legislative process are provided by the House and Senate Parliamentarians and a summarizing overview of how a bill becomes a law more detailed than that offered by the above table is available at the website of the U.S. House of Representatives. Analogous state-level legislative process information is typically available at legislative body websites of individual states.
D. How are legislative history records organized?
Official legislative history records for a statute are compiled in terms of its Public Law number, a component of its Congressional session law citation, rather than the specific sections of the U.S. Code it has added or amended. The Public Law number can be obtained from a popular name table if a researcher begins with the name of the statute. It can otherwise be found at the end of the Code sections for which the statute is the sole or a contributing source.For measures falling short of enactment or still in the legislative process documentation is provided in terms of bill number and Congress, eg., H.R. 16, 107th Cong., (2001) or S. 125, 108th Cong. (2003).
Federal Legislative History Sources
A. Online federal legislative history publications & Bluebook citation rule numbers
Publication Name or Type |
Selected Online Sources |
||||
Library of Congress - Thomas & American Memory |
HeinOnline |
GPO Access |
|||
Congressional Bills & Resolutions |
1995 to date |
1989 to date |
1989 to date, GPO Access PDF files begin at 1995; Am. Mem., selected image files, 6th - 42nd Cong., 1799 - 1873 |
||
Congressional Committee Reports |
Selected edited coverage of enacted legislation, 1948 -1989; full coverage, 1990 to date MORE | CMTRPT - Selected full text, 1990 - 1992; complete coverage, 1993 to date | 1995 to date, GPO Access PDF; Am. Mem., selected Serial Set image files (23rd - 64th Cong., 1833 - 1917) |
1995 to date; includes Senate Executive Reports (PDF files) | |
Congressional
Record Daily & Permanent editions |
CR - Daily ed. 1985 to date, index and History of Bills and Resolutions not included | RECORD - Daily ed. 1985 to date, index and History of Bills and Resolutions not included | Daily ed., 1989 to date (1995 to date in PDF); Biweekly Index; Permanent ed. image files, 43rd Cong., 1873 - 75 (Am. Mem.) |
Daily
ed., 1995 to date in PDF; |
|
Congressional Globe |
Am. Mem., facsimile image files, 23rd - 42nd Cong., 1833 - 73 | ||||
Register of Debates |
Am. Mem., image files, 18th Cong., 2nd sess. - 25th Cong., 1st sess., 1824 - 37 | ||||
Annals of Congress |
Am. Mem., facsimile image files, 1st - 18th Cong., 1st sess., 1789 - 1824 | ||||
Committee Prints |
CMTPRN - Selected coverage, 1995 to date | Limited PDF coverage from 1997 to date | |||
House & Senate Documents |
HSDOCS - 1995 to date; excludes Treaty Documents | Am. Mem., selected image files from Serial Set, 23rd - 64th Cong., 1833 - 1917 | 1995 to date; includes Treaty Documents | ||
Congressional Hearings |
Selected, unofficial coverage of oral testimony and witness written statements from Federal Document Clearing House, 1993 to date MORE | Selected, unofficial coverage of oral testimony and written statements provided by Federal Document Clearing House, 1993 to date and Federal News Service, August 1988 to date MORE | Congressional committee major hearings transcripts, official and unofficial, are often first available at committee websites - linked from the THOMAS homepage | Selected coverage of official House and Senate hearings, 1997 to date in PDF | |
GAO Reports |
GAO-RPTS - 1994 to date - from Federal Document Clearing House | GAORPT - 1994 to date - from Federal Document Clearing House (LexisNexis only) | 1995
to date PDF file; |
||
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents & Public Papers of
the Presidents |
WCPD
- 2000 to date |
PRESDC
- March 24, 1979 to date |
1965 - 2004, Weekly Compilation, facsimile image files | 1993
to date PDF file for Weekly Compilation; |
|
| Compiled Full Text Legislative Histories | Arnold & Porter collection - includes 27 major contemporary federal statutes MORE | LexisNexis provides selective coverage of major federal statutes MORE | |||
| * If you click the links that lead to Westlaw or LexisNexis search screens, you must "sign off" the database and close the sign off screen before returning to this guide. If you neglect to do so, you will remain signed on and may incur charges. | |||||
B. Major finding aids and guides to compiled legislative histories
1. CIS Index to Publications of the United States Congress (LexisNexis) is the premiere bibliographic source for identifying and locating the official publications of Congress from 1970 to date. It is updated monthly and accompanied by a full text microfiche service also dating from 1970 that contains all Congressional publications except bills and resolutions and the Congressional Record. In addition to its publication in a two-part, index and abstracts, print version, the CIS INDEX is also available online from LexisNexis as a monthly updated module in its Congressional service. A system of year-specific CIS "accession numbers" serves to uniquely identify every document covered by the INDEX, enabling retrieval of document abstracts (in print or online) and full text copy from the microfiche collection. Publication search options include controlled subject, Congressional committee, title, witness (for hearings), organization name and bill, report or document number. Bibliographic records retrieved electronically from Congressional include full-text links to the documents when, variably dating from the 1980's and 90's, they are available in databases on LexisNexis. Note, however, that these are unofficial versions, not the official texts published by the U.S. Government Printing Office and identified by CIS accession numbers. Excluding hearings testimony, the unofficial texts are also directly accessible on Congressional in a full-text, keyword-searchable "Publications" database that is augmented by coverage of bills and resolutions and the Congressional Record. A separate "Testimony" database affords keyword and witness name searching and retrieval of the unofficial hearings testimony.
The CIS Index includes a very helpful compiled legislative history module that claims exhaustive coverage of the official documentary record of the passage of all Public Laws enacted by Congress since 1970. The compilations are searchable by Public Law number, Statutes at Large citation, enacted bill number, keyword or controlled subject and statute popular name. For the years 1970 to 1983 only statute summaries, publication citations and CIS accession numbers are given but since 1984 the CIS abstracts have also been included. Links are generally provided to unofficial full-text versions of cited documents if they are available on LexisNexis. The CIS Index legislative history module can also be accessed directly from LexisNexis. The Source path is: Legal>Legislation & Politics - U.S. & U.K.>U.S. Congress>Legislative Histories.2. CIS Historical Indexes and Indexes to Unpublished Hearings, 1789-1980 (Lexis Nexis) is a major compilation of retrospective bibliographic records of Congressional documents that consolidates several LexisNexis Academic & Library Solutions (formerly CIS) print indexes and abstracts for publications of Congress from 1789 to 1969 and also includes coverage of unpublished hearings, currently updated to 1980. It is available as a module on Congressional and as a LexisNexis database (CISHST - same Source path as the CIS Index) and like the CIS Index is accompanied by "accession number" identified, full text official documents on microfiche. Historical Indexes contains no separate compiled legislative history module but a combined Congress number and bill number search will retrieve records for all the documents included in the database that are associated with a legislative measure. Bill numbers for Congressional session laws are provided by the Statutes at Large.
3. Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories: A Bibliography of Government Documents, Periodical Articles, and Books 1st Congress - 105th Congress; Compiled by Nancy P. Johnson (Rothman, 2000; updated irregularly) - This extensive checklist of federal legislative history compilations covers both official and unofficial publications that contain either full text or edited reports, hearings or debates and also provides citations to major secondary sources that offer significant discussion and analysis of the legislative history of specific statutes. The checklist is arranged in Public Law number order. Entries are also accessible by statute popular name or short title.
4. Federal Legislative Histories: An Annotated Bibliography and Index to Officially Published Sources; Compiled by Bernard D. Reams, Jr. (Greenwood Press, 1994) - This guide includes over 250 federal legislative histories compiled by official sources - Congressional committee staff, the Congressional Research Service and federal executive agencies. Coverage ranges from the 37th Congress (1862) to the 101st Congress, 2nd session (1990). Public Laws included, however, date from the 4th Congress (1796). Indexes provide access by Public Law number, statute popular name, bill number and author.
C. Bill tracking sources
1. THOMAS Bill Summary & Status - This free-access Library of Congress database affords up-to-date and comprehensive bill tracking of Congressional bills and resolutions from the 93rd Congress, 1973 to date. Searching by "Stage in Legislative Process" as well as by "Bill, Amendment or Public Law Number" is provided. Listed by date are all committee and floor actions, including not only the floor votes documented by the Congressional Record but also "reported out of committee" voice votes recorded in committee reports. References to hearings and reports by number are given as are links to roll call votes (since 1989), Congressional Record floor debate and amendments (since 1989) and full text committee reports(since 1995).
2. LexisNexis Congressional - The bill status coverage of this service is comparable to that of THOMAS but begins later - 101st Congress, 1989. Its detailed bill tracking reports include links from document citations to the full text if the latter are available on LexisNexis. Select the “Bills” module and search by sponsor, keyword or bill number.
3. Congressional Record Index ( History of Bills and Resolutions) - The Record's biweekly Daily edition index contains a "History of Bills and Resolutions" section arranged by House and Senate bill and resolution numbers. For each bill it contains a chronological list of legislative actions that includes dates and citations to Record page numbers. The History of Bills does not provide references to hearings. It can be searched as a separate application back to 1983 on GPO Access, where it is updated daily and cumulates from the beginning of each session of Congress. Unlike other online bill tracking sources, however, it provides no links to the Congressional Record or to full text committee reports. The History of Bills and Resolutions is chiefly useful for historical legislative history research. It has been included in the Permanent edition index since the inception of the Congressional Record in 1873. Unfortunately, online coverage of the Permanent edition Record is currently very limited - only the 43rd Congress, 1873-75, available on the American Memory web site of the Library of Congress, and the 106th Cong., 1st sess., 1999 (Vol. 145), recently posted by GPO Access.
4. Congressional Index (CCH) - Beginning with the 75th Congress (1937-38) and updated biweekly, this looseleaf service provides basic and readily accessible bill status information, including sponsor(s), date of introduction and committee referral, dates of hearings and floor debate, recorded votes and the report numbers of any published committee reports for a given bill. No Congressional Record cites are provided.
5. Calendars of the U.S. House of Representatives & History of Legislation - GPO Access provides PDF files of final Calendars dating from the 104th Congress and the daily Calendar for the current Congress. The daily issue, available by 8:00 A.M. when the House is in session, records the history of all bills and resolutions under consideration by the Senate as well as the House. Coverage includes committee reports and floor activity but not hearings, searchable by bill/resolution number, bill popular name and subject. Congressional Record page citations are not given. Though infrequently consulted, the daily Calendar is perhaps the most up-to-date source for Congressional bill status information.
6. House & Senate Journals - 1789 to date - The only publication mandated by the U.S. Constitution, the Journals - not the Congressional Record - provide the official record of the daily legislative proceedings of the House and Senate, including voting records and a "History of Bills and Resolutions" but not debates or speeches. Published at the conclusion of each session of Congress, the Journals are chiefly consulted for the pre-Record historical legislative history information they provide. Indeed, for the legislative activity they document, the Journals are both more complete and often more accurate than the privately published predecessors of the Congressional Record - the Annals of Congress, the Register of Debates and the Congressional Globe, 1st-42nd Congresses (1789 - 1873).
D. Secondary source current commentary
1. CQ Weekly - This magazine contains informative articles discussing the purposes of major federal legislative initiatives and the political issues determining their progress through Congress. At the close of each calendar year the weekly issues are recompiled in a bound annual volume with a new index and republished as the Congressional Quarterly Almanac Plus (1945 to date). CQ Weekly is also a Harvard users only E-Resource providing coverage that dates from 1983. It affords boolean searching of articles and floor votes by word, phrase or bill number, "latest vote" retrieval by subject and also topic browsing by date.
2. National Journal - This weekly magazine is an influential source of analytical articles covering lobbying and Executive branch and Congressional actions as they relate to significant legislative initiatives. It is available on LexisNexis (NTLJNL) with coverage since January 1, 1977 to date and on Westlaw (NATJNL) from March 23, 1996 to date. Congress Daily, an electronic newsletter, is another National Journal Group publication that can be helpful to legislative history researchers, particularly for its "insider" accounts of committee hearings and markup sessions.Congress Daily coverage on LexisNexis (CNGDLY) runs from June 3, 1991 to date and on Westlaw (CONGDLY) from June, 22, 1994 to date. Also, A.M. and P.M. editions of Congress Daily (CongressDaily) are available, respectively, from March 23, 1995 to date and June 22, 1994 to date on Factiva.com.
State Legislative History Sources
A. Online sources
1. Free Access Sources - Every state provides free, official legislative body website access to all full text bills from its current legislative session. Typically searchable by keyword as well as bill number, the bills are generally available as facsimile image file reproductions of the official print versions. Retrospective coverage of 10 years or more is not uncommon. Bill tracking reports are also generally provided. Other significant legislative history materials, however, such as hearings and committee reports, are still only sporadically available online, are frequently not widely disseminated in print and may not even exist in any full text, official form. Moreover, the legislative process and legislative history research can vary significantly from state to state. Helping to meet the challenge thus posed for legal researchers are the legislative history guides that have been produced for all states. They have been collected and made available in full text by: State Legislative History Research Guides on the Web, compiled by Jennifer Bryan, Documents Librarian at the Indiana University School of Law Library. The contents and availability of state legislative journals, historically the most significant official source of information about state legislation, are discussed at a web site maintained by the Yale Law School Library, itself the repository of a "very complete" print collection of these documents.
Useful sites affording direct and sometimes annotated links to bills, bill status reports and additional legislative information for all states include:
- Cornell LII: Law by source: State (Select jurisdiction, then click links under "Constitution and Legislation")
- Full-text state statutes and legislation on the Internet: Scruffy (Choose "legislation" by state or territory)
- Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.: State Legislatures, State Laws and State Regulations
- National Conference of State Legislatures (Select state(s), then under "One Content Area" choose "Bills" or "Legislators")
- State and Local Government on the Net: State Legislatures (Choose from often multiple legislative sites by state)
2. Commercial Sources - LexisNexis and Westlaw provide coverage of full text bills and bill tracking for all 50 states from 1996 to date and for selected states from 1990/91 to date. A major source for both is Information for Public Affairs, Inc. This coverage is also given by the E-Resource, LexisNexis State Capital, which allows individual, multiple or all-state keyword searching and template-based retrieval of bills and tracking reports by year and bill number citation.
Westlaw has assembled a collection of the growing array of state legislative history-relevant materials that for recent years can be gleaned from official state web sites. Covered but variably available from the 36 states and the District of Columbia currently included are voting records, committeee reports, legislative journals, Governor's signing messages and legislative transcripts of hearings and debates. These documents can be accessed via the State-LH multibase.
B. Print source guides to state legislative history research
-
State Legislative Sourcebook 2005: A Resource Guide to Legislative Information in the Fifty States; Lynn Hellebust (Government Research Service, published annually) - This comprehensive guide, covering print and online sources, provides a wide range of detailed, current information on the identification and acquisition of state legislative history materials. Sections for each state include "Legislative organization and process", Legislator information" and "Session information". State by state legislative bill status and bill room telephone numbers are also listed.
- Guide to State Legislative and Administrative Materials; William H. Manz (Hein & Co.), 2002 ed.; Rev. ed. of: Guide to State Legislative and Administrative Materials / Mary L. Fisher. 4th ed. 1988) - Included in this useful guide is state by state information regarding the availability of current and historical print and electronic format legislation and legislative history documents. Also provided are addresses, phone numbers, E-mail addresses and URLs for assistance in locating and obtaining, sometimes for a fee, legislative documents and bill status information not widely available in libraries or online.