Legislative History Research: A Locator Guide to Federal and State Sources

Contents

Primary Publication Locator Table

• Harvard Library Local Holdings
• Full Text Internet Sources and Links
• Major Finding Aids & Compiled Legislative History Guides
• Bill Tracking Sources
• Westlaw Full Text Legislative History Databases
• LexisNexis Full Text Legislative History Databases
• Secondary Source Current Commentary

• Online Sources
• Print Source Guides to State Legislative History Research

Primary Publication Locator Table

Federal Legislative History Sources

Harvard Library Local Holdings

1. Congressional House and Senate bills and resolutions
   A. 1st Congress - 72nd Congress, 1789-1933 (Library of Congress Preservation Microfilming Program); available at Widener Government Documents Division in Lamont Library. Film 936
   B. CIS Congressional bills, resolutions and laws - 73rd Congress - 89th Congress, 1933-1967; Widener Gov. Docs. (Lamont). Microfiche S 550
   C. CIS Congressional bills resolutions and laws - 82nd Congress - 97th Congress, 1951-1982; Langdell Library microform room Mic US 201, Drawers 295-298 (This microfiche collection of bills is arranged in numerical order by Congress. No CIS No. is required as a finding aid.)
   D. U.S. Government Printing Office Congressional bills and resolutions - 98th Congress (1983) through 106th Congress (2000); currently available from Thomson, 107th Congress, 2001 to date - Langdell microform room Mic J 50 U, Drawers 298-303. Since these bills and resolutions are disseminated in non-numerical order, the Superintendent of Documents microfiche user’s guide for Congressional House and Senate bills is required as a finding aid. Mic Ref J 50 .S96x.
2. Congressional Record - Daily edition - KF 35 .C7 - (Latest 12 months, approx., in Langdell Reading Room.) Comprised since 1967 of separately paginated sections - H (House), S (Senate), E (Extension of Remarks) and D (Daily Digest). Contains the floor debate on legislative proposals under Congressional consideration, the text of all floor amendments to bills and resolutions, occasionally the text of Senate bills and less frequently the text of House bills. Conference committee reports may also be included. The Daily edition is accompanied by a semi-monthly Index. Langdell also holds a microfiche copy of the daily edition of the Congressional Record - Mic KF 35 .C7a (Drawers 690-691) - beginning with the 99th Congress, 2nd session (1986). It is generally as up-to-date as the paper copy.
   Permanent edition - Mic KF 35 .C6a - Microfilm covering the 43rd Congress (1873) to the 96th Congress, 1st session (1979) - vols. 1-125 - is located in Drawers 629-636. Microfiche coverage continues from vol. 126 - 96th Congress, 2nd session (1980) - to (at present) vol. 149 - 108th Congress, 1st session (2003) in Drawer 687. The slow to be published Permanent edition of the Congressional Record contains the rearranged contents of the Daily edition organized in a single numeric page sequence that integrates the daily chronology of House and Senate activities. It also includes an annual index for each session of Congress that is required for locating the Permanent edition pages of Record contents cited to the Daily edition unless Permanent edition volumes are available for direct searching online. Daily edition citations should always be converted into Permanent edition citations if the latter are available - Bluebook rule 13.5. A bound paper copy of the permanent edition index is shelved in the Reading Room at KF 35 .C7 Index. Consult the appropriate volumes of the microform copy of the Congressional Record itself for indexing covered by the scattered missing volumes of the Index.
   The Congressional Globe - Covering the 23rd to the 42nd Congress, 1833-1873, this predecessor publication to the Record is shelved in the Reading Room at KF 35 .C7. Several volumes are missing.
3. United States Code, Congressional and Administrative News (USCCAN) - KF 48 .W45 - (1941 to date). Originally entitled United States Code Service, bound cumulative annual volumes and monthly update pamphlets contain selected and often editorially shortened Congressional committee reports for enacted legislation. Includes Presidential signing statements, officially published in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, since 1986. Always provide a parallel citation to the bound volume permanent edition of USCCAN if a committee report is reprinted therein - Bluebook rule 13.4(a). (An online version of USCCAN is available on Westlaw.)
4. CIS U. S. Congressional Serial Set- Mic KF 12 .U5a (1789- 1969) - Drawers 467- 478. The retrospective CIS Serial Set microfiche collection contains the official full text of the numbered Congressional House and Senate Reports and Documents from 1817 to 1969, the House & Senate Journals from 1817 to 1952 and a small number of very old hearings. CIS has also added the American State Papers, a collection of topically arranged legislative and executive documents of Congress that date from 1789 to 1838 (also available electronically from the Library of Congress). The print version finding aid for the CIS Serial Set fiche is the CIS U.S. Serial Set Index - Reference KF 40 .C66x 1975. Its “Finding List” section provides the Serial Set numbers (volume and serial) required to locate a specific document on the fiche. This bibliographic information can also be obtained online from LexisNexis Congressional - LexisNexis owns CIS - by selecting the "Serial Set" box in the "Advanced Search" form of the "Congressional Publications" module.
   Senate Executive Documents (continued by Treaty Documents in 1981) which communicate either Presidential messages to the Senate concerning proposed treaties or Executive nominations for government positions and also Senate Executive Reports that document Senate committee action on treaties were not incorporated in the Serial Set until 1980. However, since 1970 these records have been available in the CIS microform service. (See entry immediately below). Earlier coverage, from 1818 to 1969 - that includes texts of confidential Indian treaties through 1870 - is provided by another CIS fiche collection: CIS Senate Executive Documents and Reports - Microfiche W 5413 - located at Government Documents Lamont and accompanied by its own print index.
   Online indexing but not full-text availability of the pre-1970 Executive Documents and Reports is provided via the "Advanced Search" form in the "Congressional Publications" module on LexisNexis Congressional. Since they are not included in the Serial Set, conduct a search for the bibliographic records of these pre-1970 materials by selecting the House and Senate Documents or Reports boxes, not the "Serial Set (1789-1969)" box. More about Senate Executive Documents, Treaty Documents and Senate Executive Reports.
5. CIS microform (LexisNexis) - Mic KF 49 .C62 - Drawers 479-508 - (1970 to date; updated monthly). This microfiche service for Congressional publications contains reproductions of the official full text of all materials published by Congress except bills and resolutions and the Congressional Record. Included are House and Senate Reports and Documents, Senate Executive Documents (replaced by Treaty Documents in 1981), Senate Executive Reports, committee hearings and prints and the background papers and reports of the defunct (1995) Office of Technology Assessment. CIS also includes the publications of the Congressional Budget Office, many of which are also Hollis-catalogued, currently collected and held in print by Lamont Gov. Docs. and/or the Kennedy School of Government Library. Separate CBO maintained web sites, however, provide comprehensive and more convenient full-text PDF access to Publications dating from 1977 and to reported bill Cost Estimates since 1997.
   CIS publications can be identified and located on the fiche by means of the separate index and abstract volumes of the CIS Index to Publications of the United States Congress. Organized in terms of a system of unique document identification “accession numbers”, CIS Index (also updated monthly) is shelved at Reference KF 49 .C62. A complete search of its contents can be duplicated on LexisNexis Congressional by selecting: Date - 1970 to Present and all but the CRS Reports and Serial Set search boxes in the "Advanced Search" form of the "Congressional Publications" module.
   Most of the older official Congressional publications included in the 1970 to date CIS microform service, although seldom individually catalogued in HOLLIS (except for CBO materials), can also be found at Gov. Docs. (Lamont), directly distributed in paper or microform by the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). Individual Congressional publications, however, have been HOLLIS-catalogued since 1995 by Government Documents, where they may be available on fiche before appearing in CIS. Also the recent Gov. Docs. paper holdings generally circulate to Harvard users with Library borrowing privileges.
   The pre-1970 full text coverage of official Congressional materials offered by CIS is provided by separate microfiche collections devoted to committee prints, published hearings, unpublished hearings, House and Senate Reports and Documents (the Serial Set) and Senate Executive Documents and Reports. The committee prints, published and unpublished hearings and Senate Executive Documents and Reports fiche are held only by Government Documents Lamont. The CIS Serial Set fiche collection is located only at Langdell. The corresponding print format indexes to these materials can be found at both Government Documents and Langdell, although updates to the unpublished hearings indexes are not held by the latter. The contents of the indexes are accessible online from the "Advanced Search" form choices in the "Congressional Publications" module of LexisNexis Congressional.
6. Congressional Research Service Reports - Although not formally a part of the official documentary legislative history record, these reports can be of value to researchers because they often provide analysis of key federal statutes or significant legislative proposals under consideration by Congress. CRS also frequently compiles official legislative histories for the statutes with which it has been concerned. CRS is prohibited from distributing its work directly to the public but an indexed microfilm collection encompassing most of the publically available reports has been published by University Publications of America (UPA). Its current title is Major Studies and Issue Briefs of the Congressional Research Service. Supplement - Microforms (Lamont) Film S 1564 - (1976 to date; annual updates since 1978). Reports in the collection dating from 1916 to 1974/75 are located under its previous title, Major Studies of the Legislative Reference Service/Congressional Research Service - Microforms (Lamont) Film S 1563. UPA's CD-ROM version of the collection, dating from 1916 to 1998, is available at Gov. Docs (Lamont) as well as at workstations in the Reading Rooms of Lamont and Littauer Libraries. Note that the individual CRS Reports comprising this source are not separately catalogued in HOLLIS.
7. Government Accountability Office (GAO) Reports - Although not included among the documents comprising the official legislative history of a federal statute, GAO Reports are nevertheless frequently consulted by researchers, particularly when they are the published record of GAO's contribution to the drafting of legislation or its review of a legislative proposal before Congress. Reports to Congress by the Comptroller General of the United States (1975 to date) is a major retrospective microfiche collection of these reports held by Gov. Docs. (Lamont) - Microfiche Su Doc GA 1.13 - that provides backup coverage through 1995 for the comprehensive PDF database of current and archived Reports available online from GAO. Note that in addition to retrieving records for GAO Reports held in microfiche (or print) by Gov. Docs., a HOLLIS catalog search may also return records of print copy holdings of GAO Reports selectively acquired by other Harvard libraries. All pre-1975 Reports held by Harvard libraries and recorded in the HOLLIS catalog are print copies.
8. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents - (1965 to date). Includes Presidential Public Law signing statements and veto messages that may be helpful for construing legislative intent. Langdell maintains a current microfiche collection beginning in 1992 - Mic J 80 .A284a - Drawer 848 - and a print backfile from 1965 to 1977 - J 80 .A284. Since 1974 the contents of this publication have been fully incorporated in the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States - J 80 .A283 - (1929 to date - commencing with the Presidency of Herbert Hoover but excluding that of President Franklin Roosevelt) which should be cited if documents are included therein - Bluebook rule 14.7(b).
   A more extensive collection of U.S. Presidential documents is maintained by Gov. Docs. Lamont.

Full Text Internet Sources & Links

1. THOMAS - Legislative Information on the Internet (Library of Congress)
   A. Congressional committee reports and documents – Current Reports, but not Documents, can be searched by word/phrase, report number or bill number from the 104th Congress - 1995 to date. PDF
   The “Historical Documents” sidebar link on the THOMAS home page offers access to variably searchable facsimile image files of selected Congressional Serial Set committee reports and documents for selected Congresses from the 23rd to the 64th (1833-1917) as available at the Library of Congress American Memory web site.
   B. Congressional bills - Full text bills date from the 101st Congress (1989), U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) PDF versions from the 103rd Congress (1993). Multi-Congress searching is an option. A separate "Bill Summary & Status" database dating from the 93rd Congress (1973) offers search options that include bill number, word/phrase, sponsor, controlled subject and “stage in legislative process”. Bill summaries are authored by the Congressional Research Service.
   The THOMAS home page “Historical Documents” sidebar links to the American Memory project of the Library of Congress that provides selective access to image files of early bills and resolutions browsable by date, keyword and committee – House bills and resolutions (6th - 11th and 13th - 42nd Congresses), Senate bills and resolutions (16th - 42nd Congresses), Senate joint resolutions (18th – 19th, 21st – 23rd and 25th – 42nd Congresses).
   C. Congressional Record - Full text coverage begins with the 101st Congress (1989). A separate database for the biweekly issues of the Index of the Daily edition Congressional Record commences with the 104th Congress (1995). The electronic version of each issue of this Daily edition Index, unlike the paper edition, cumulates fully from the beginning of a Congressional session. Bill references resulting from Index word/phrase or topic queries are full-text linked to all bill versions. Congressional Record page cites retrieved by Index searches are also text-linked. Thomas excludes the "History of Bills and Resolutions" component of the CRI, offering in its stead a "Bill Summary and Status" database that includes not only the floor votes listed in the Congressional Record but also the committee member “reported out of committee” voice votes recorded in committee reports.
   The "Historical Documents" sidebar entry on the Thomas home page provides a link to complete facsimile image file coverage of the debates and proceedings of Congress as published in the predecessors of the Congressional Record - the Annals of Congress, the Register of Debates and the Congressional Globe, 1st-42nd Congresses (1789 - 1873) - and in the first three volumes of the Congressional Record itself (1873-75) at the Library of Congress American Memory web site. Also located there are the House & Senate Journals from 1789 to 1875 and the American State Papers. (A print copy of the Annals of Congress is located at Gov. Docs. (Lamont) - US Doc 500 - and the Register of Debates can be found there also - US Doc 502 - as well as in Widener Library - US 82 .9).
2. GPO Access - The official Congressional and other U.S. Government publications provided by this Web site are made available to the public as a free service of the U.S. Government Printing Office. Full-text boolean word or phrase searching is provided and, where applicable, searching by title, date and Document or Report number as well. PDF
   A. Congressional committee reports - Coverage began with the 104th Congress (1995) and includes Senate Executive Reports
   B. Committee hearings - Official, GPO-published House and Senate hearings are available, variably by committee, beginning with the 104th Congress (1995). Coverage is more comprehensive for recent years. Senate Judiciary Committee Supreme Court nomination hearings, however, are available from 1971 to date.
   C. Congressional bills - Official PDF files date from the 103rd Congress (1993) - retrievable by bill type and number from Congressional Bills: Browse.
   D. Congressional Record - Searchable from 1994 (vol. 140) and PDF retrievable since 1995 (vol. 141). Annual Congressional Record Index (CRI) databases offer Permanent ed. cites from 1983 until 1990 and Daily ed. cites thereafter. They are searchable individually or, excluding the current year, as a group. When Congress is in session the database for the current year CRI is updated daily on GPO Access. The “History of Bills and Resolutions” section of the CRI Daily edition is separately searchable, also dating from 1983.
   Permanent edition (PDF) coverage of the Congressional Record is provided by GPO Access but currently limited to vols. 145 & 146, 106th Congress (1999-2000). Additional limited, but expanding coverage is provided by LLMC Digital which presently includes full-text or citation (volume, part and page) searchable facsimile image files of volumes 136 (1990) to 149, pt. 7 (April 29, 2003). Sample full-text boolean search
   E. Calendars of the U.S. House of Representatives and History of Legislation - Includes final calendars since the 104th Congress and the Daily Calendar for the current Congress. Published daily when the House is in session, the Calendar records the history of all bills and resolutions under consideration for both the House and Senate. Coverage includes committee reports and floor activity but not hearings. Searchable by bill/resolution number, bill popular name or by subject. Congressional Record page citations are not given. Perhaps the most current, authoritative source for bill status information. PDF availability. Final edition incomplete backfile for earlier Congresses at Gov. Docs. (Lamont) - US Doc 710 .5
   F. Committee Prints - Limited PDF coverage begins with the 105th Congress (1997)
   G. House and Senate Documents - The Congressional Documents database, which includes Senate Treaty Documents, covers the 104th Congress (1995) to date.
   H. Government Accountability Office (GAO) Reports – All GAO Reports publicly released from 1995 to date and limited reports for 1993-94 are available in official PDF files from GPO Access. (Unofficial, non-PDF versions of these Reports are also provided by LexisNexis and Westlaw.) However, an archival PDF database that is updated daily and provides comprehensive coverage of Reports back to 1971 and earlier selective coverage beginning in 1922 is available directly from GAO. This source - Reports and Testimony (updated daily) - is title or full text word/phrase and report number searchable and is also browsable by date, topic or agency. It is generally more current and often more reliable than the GPO hosted database and so should be the first place to look for any GAO Report issued since 1975. To reach the advanced search template needed to conduct a title or full text word/phrase query, click "Go" next to the blank "Keyword or Report #" search box in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Then click "Advanced" in the empty search box of the retrieved "No results were found" search page. This site also provides an online order form - report numbers are required - for free print copies of Reports from GAO.
   I. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents - Available from vol. 29, 1993 - the beginning of the Clinton Presidency. Contents as compiled in the (roughly) semi-annual volumes of the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States are also searchable on GPO Access from 1991-2002. Also available online at their respective Presidential Library web sites are selected materials from the Public Papers of Presidents Truman, Reagan and Bush, Sr. (The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) provides links to the web sites of all Presidential libraries.)
3. Congressional Committee Web Sites - Committee (and subcommittee) Web sites generally provide lists of recent committee publications, schedules of pending committee meetings, hearings purpose statements and witness lists. They may also include bill markups, committee member markup statements and, most importantly, sometimes the most up to date access to either pre-publication versions of hearings testimony (full or partial transcripts) or PDF files of the official GPO transcripts. Some transcripts are searchable by witness name. Thomas provides links to committee homepages and a GPO Access web site offers direct links to the hearings and other online publications of all standing Congressional committees, joint committees and Congressional commissions. Convenient links to these legislative materials and other committee information are also provided by the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, D.C., Inc. and for House and Senate committees, respectively, by the Office of the House Clerk and GPO Access.
4. LexisNexis Congressional - The "Congressional Publications" module of Congressional incorporates the bibliographic contents of the monthly updated print CIS indexes/abstracts that serve to identify full text official publications of Congress and to locate them in the accompanying CIS Index microfiche service. Full text links, when provided by this module, however, retrieve materials that duplicate the scope, content and format not of the microfiche but of databases, typically updated daily when Congress is in session, that are taken from LexisNexis, the owner of CIS. Specifically, the "Congressional Publications" module does not provide the complete 1970 to date retrospective coverage offered by the CIS fiche nor are the documents it offers - committee reports (1990 to date), selected committee prints (1993 to 2004), House and Senate Documents (1995 to date) and Congressional hearings (1988 to date) - facsimile copies of the official publications of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). Rather they appear in unofficial LexisNexis format and in the case of hearings testimony, as unofficial component transcripts of Congressional hearings provided by commercial news sources prior to the compilation of the official texts by GPO . Separate "witness" name and "witness affiliation" search options in the module afford direct access to these transcripts - witness Q & A testimony and written statement submissions. A PDF digital collection of Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports (1916 to date), updated monthly, is a recent addition to the "Congressional Publications" module. Its 1916 to 2003 retrospective component is slated for completion in June, 2007. Publications of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the now defunct (1995) Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) are located in the "committee prints" database - where they can be exclusively retrieved by "Congressional source"- limited searches for their respective organization names.
   Other modules in Congressional, also by way of LexisNexis but not covered by the CIS microfiche service, include unofficial full text databases of the Congressional Record (1985 to date), Congressional bills & resolutions (1989 to date) and current rules of Congress. The full text PDF Serial Set module (1789-1969) offered by Congressional is not included in the Harvard University subscription but an alternative is available from NewsBank/Readex. LexisNexis Congressional is a Harvard Libraries E-Resource available to holders of a Harvard University ID and PIN.
5. LLRX.com – CRS Reports – This updated web guide by Stephen Young of Catholic University of America Law School Library reviews the purpose, history and availability of Congressional Research Service Reports. It provides annotated links to more than twenty “general” and “subject specialist” web sites that afford free and typically PDF file access to full-text online Reports.
   Zfacts.com offers Google search templates for full-text keyword or order code searches that are restricted to web-available CRS Reports. For a fee, otherwise unobtainable Reports may be available from Penny Hill Press, a major commercial supplier of CRS documents for which it claims full coverage from 1995 to date.

Major Finding Aids & Compiled Legislative History Guides

1. CIS Index to Publications of the United States Congress (LexisNexis) is the premiere bibliographic source for identifying and locating official publications of Congress all of which, save bills and resolutions and the Congressional Record, it documents from 1970 to date. Updated monthly, the contents of the Index are fully represented by an accompanying full text microfiche service, also dating from 1970. This coverage includes Senate Executive Documents (renamed Treaty Documents in 1981) and Senate Executive Reports, publications not added to the main House and Senate Documents and Reports series (the Serial Set) until 1980.
   A system of year-specific CIS "accession numbers" serves to uniquely identify every document covered by the Index, enabling retrieval of document abstracts and full text copy from the microfiche collection. Publication search options in an "Index of Subjects and Names" include controlled subject terms, Congressional committee and other organization names and witness names (for hearings). Supplementary indexes provide searching by bill, report or document number.
   In addition to its ongoing publication in a two-part, index and abstracts, print format, the contents of the CIS Index - as well as those of its pre-1970 companion indexes (see entry immediately below) - are also available online in LexisNexis Congressional where they are incorporated in the monthly updated "Congressional Publications" module. (Publications of defunct Congressional committees can be identified in the "Congressional publications" module of LexisNexis Congressional by keyword name searches limited to "Congressional source".)
   The Bibliographic records retrieved electronically via the "Congressional Publications " module 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. Separate modules, keyword or citation searchable, provide the unofficial full-text access to bills & resolutions and the Congressional Record.
   The CIS Index includes a very helpful compiled legislative history section - available both in print and as a separately searchable component of the "Congressional Publications" module of LexisNexis Congressional - 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 terms and by 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 database (CISLH)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 Index (Congressional Masterfile 1): Congressional Indexes, 1789-1969 with Indexes to House and Senate Unpublished Hearings (Lexis Nexis) - This major electronic compilation of retrospective bibliographic records of Congressional documents consolidates the contents of several LexisNexis Academic & Library Solutions (formerly CIS) print indexes for publications of Congress from 1789 to 1969, including the Serial Set Index and the CIS Index to U.S. Senate Executive Documents & Reports. Coverage of unpublished hearings, currently updated to 1972 for the House and 1980 for the Senate, is an additional feature it provides. It is available online as a LexisNexis database (CISHST - Source path: Legal>Legislation & Politics - U.S. & U.K.>U.S. Congress>Legislative Histories) and in a no longer updated CD-Rom format (Congressional Masterfile 1) at Gov. Docs. Lamont. It is most readily accessible, however, as incorporated in the "Congressional Publications" module of LexisNexis Congressional where its coverage via the "Advanced search" form, except for the Serial Set (1789-1969), has been chronologically merged by document type - committee prints, hearings, House and Senate Documents and House and Senate Reports - with the 1970 to date counterpart coverage of the CIS Index. (When using the form to identify a pre-1970 House or Senate Document or Report - by title or subject term, if a number search is not possible - conduct your search in the Serial Set, not in Documents or Reports, unless you are seeking a Senate Executive Document or Senate Executive Report. Note also that Harvard University does not subscribe to the full-text, PDF Serial Set database available from LexisNexis Congressional, providing access rather to an alternative version offered by NewsBank/Readex.)
   The Historical Index, like its 1970 to date counterpart, has companion collections of "accession number"-identified, full text official documents on microfiche that correspond to the individual retrospective CIS print indexes it encompasses. It contains no compiled legislative history component analogous to that provided for laws enacted since 1970 but a combined Congress number and bill number search will retrieve records for all documents included in the database that are associated with a given bill, regardless of its legislative fate.
   Nearly all Congressional materials to which Historical Indexes provides bibliographic access, including committee prints and the unpublished as well as published hearings, are available in full-text print and/or CIS fiche or other microform sources at Gov. Docs. Lamont. The more limited Law Library holdings include the Reports and Documents comprising the CIS U.S. Congressional Serial Set microfiche collection (access to which through Historical Indexes is afforded not by CIS No. but by the same Serial Set nos. provided by the separate Serial Set print index) and a very few individually Hollis-catalogued committee prints and hearings. The Law Library has no print or microform collection of pre-1970 Congressional hearings and relies exclusively on CIS microfiche for its 1970 to date holdings.
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. This work is also available in the Legislative History Library of HeinOnline. Click "List of Public Laws". Then select from the alphabetical list of statute popular names.
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.

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 for the Senate and 1990 for the House), 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 provided by 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 “Legislative Histories, Bills & Laws” search form which affords a "bill tracking" search option either by keyword and sponsor under a "Keyword Search" tab or by bill number under a "Get a Document" tab.
3. Congressional Record Index (History of Bills and Resolutions) - The semimonthly Index to the Daily edition Congressional Record contains a “History of Bills and Resolutions” table - arranged by House and Senate bill and resolution numbers - that cumulates from the beginning of the current session of Congress the record of the legislative treatment of every measure acted upon in the roughly two week period preceding its publication. A "text" entry under a bill or resolution number indicates that the full text of the measure appears in the Record. Dates and Congressional Record page citations are provided. References to hearings, however, are omitted. The History of Bills and Resolutions is chiefly useful for historical legislative history research. It has been included in the Permanent edition index, which provides cumulative coverage for each calendar year session of Congress, since the inception of the Congressional Record in 1873. A bound copy is shelved in the Langdell Reading Room at KF 35 .C7 Index. Consult the appropriate volumes of the Law Library microform copy of the Congressional Record as a backup source of the indexing provided by the scattered missing volumes of the bound Permanent edition Index.
   Free, online availability of the History of Bills and Resolutions back to 1983 is provided on GPO Access, where it is updated daily and cumulates from the beginning of each annual session of Congress. Unlike other online sources of bill tracking information, however, GPO includes no links to the Congressional Record or to full text committee reports. Unfortunately, online availability of the Permanent edition Record and hence also the "History of Bills and Resolutions" section of its index is currently very limited - only the 43rd Congress, 1873-75, provided by 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. Westlaw - The Find by citation service on Westlaw can be used to retrieve Congressional bill status reports but is limited to bills from the two most recent Congresses. In addition to the bill number, a proper citation format includes the year of the first session of the Congress in which a bill was introduced. So to locate a tracking report for a bill from the 109th Congress, e.g., enter this Find search: 2005 us hr 11 sn (where "sn" stands for STATE NET, a service of Information for Public Affairs, Inc., the source of bill tracking data on Westlaw. If a bill number is not known, a terms and connectors search can be conducted in the US-STN-BILLTXT database. For bill tracking reports from earlier Congresses dating from the 102nd Congress, 1991, Find is not an available citation search option. The alternative is to select the BILLTRK-OLD database and conduct a citation field search formatted as follows: ci(“h.b. 6” & "105th Congress") - (where “h.b.” and “s.b.” are the abbreviations for Senate bill and House bill, respectively).
5. LexisNexis - The “Bill Tracking Report – Current Congress” (BLTRCK) database tracks the status of bills pending in the current Congress. “Bill Tracking – Historical” permits tracking of bills from previous Congresses back to the 101st Congress (BLT101). The Sources path for these two databases is: Legal>Legislation & Politics-U.S. & U.K.>U.S. Congress.
6. CCH Congressional Index - Reference KF 49 .C6 - Beginning with the 75th Congress (1937-38) provides basic bill status information, including sponsor(s), date of introduction, Congressional committee referral, dates of hearings and floor debate (if any), voting records by subject and date (with Congressional Record page citations) and the report numbers of any published committee reports for a given bill.
7. Calendars of the U.S. House of Representatives & History of Legislation - GPO Access provides final Calendars for each Congress since the 104th and the cumulative daily Calendar, available by 8:00 A.M. when the House is in session, for the current Congress. The House Calendar records the history of all bills and resolutions under consideration by the Senate as well as the House. It includes coverage of committee reports and floor activity but not hearings and is searchable by bill/resolution number, bill popular name (short title) and subject. Congressional Record page numbers are not given. Though infrequently consulted, the daily Calendar is perhaps the most up-to-date source for Congressional bill status information. An incomplete print backfile of final edition Calendars, dating from the 66th Congress, 1919, is held by Gov. Docs. Lamont - US Doc 710.5.
8. 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 early, pre-Congressional Record legislative history information they provide for the 1st-42nd Congresses (1789 - 1873). Indeed, for the legislative activity they document, the Journals are both more complete and often more accurate than the privately published predecessors of the Record - the Annals of Congress, the Register of Debates and the Congressional Globe.
   The Journals are available for recent Congresses in both paper and microfiche at Gov. Docs (Lamont) - XJH: (House) and XJS: (Senate). The CIS U.S. Congressional Serial Set microfiche collection includes coverage from the 15th through the 82nd Congress (1817 - 1952). The Congressional Journals of the United States, held by Widener Library, provides facsimile reproductions in print for the years 1789 - 1817. Online, the American Memory project of the Library of Congress offers an uninterrupted facsimile-image run of the Journals from 1789 to 1875. NewsBank/Readex coverage begins with 1817 and will extend to 1952 when its Serial Set project is completed. For more recent years, the House Journal is belatedly searchable – currently from 1991 to 1998 - on GPO Access.

Westlaw Full Text Legislative History Databases

A Legislative History - Fed tab, one of the Jurisdictional - Federal tabs on Westlaw, provides a "Congressional Lawmaking Process" flow chart each numbered step of which has a linked search page of associated document-type databases.

1. Congressional committee reports - LH - (1948 to date). Duplicates the committee report coverage of United States Code, Congressional and Administrative News (USCCAN) from 1948 through 1989. Since 1990, however, all committee reports in full text for both enacted and unenacted legislation have been included in LH, added as soon as available from the U.S. Government Printing Office. In addition, this database also includes legislative history coverage of 1933-to-date securities laws. Conduct a topic (to) field search employing either a Public Law no., e.g., to(89-329), or words from the popular name of a statute - e.g., to("higher education act") - to retrieve the Congressional reports for a particular law. Topic searches for pre-1990 statutes will retrieve citations to the reports not included in LH or the print format USCCAN and, also, for purposes of Congressional Record research, "Dates of Consideration and Passage" in Congress as well. Since 1995 reports included in LH are star paged to the individual official publications by which they are disseminated by GPO.
   Another database - USCCAN-REP - duplicates the coverage of LH, apparently differing from the latter only by affording template as well as boolean, field searching. It is one of several databases, including USCCAN-MSG, that are components of USCCAN, the combined database counterpart to the print format United States Code, Congressional and Administrative News.
2. Committee hearings - USTESTIMONY - Covers selected, unofficial transcripts of oral testimony and written submissions of witnesses before committees of Congress since January 1993. From FDCH e-Media, Inc. (FDCH). Use the speaker field (sp) to retrieve by witness name. (Entitled Congressional Testimony by Federal Document Clearing House and with coverage beginning January 1994, this database is also available as an E-Resource from Factiva.com.)
3. Congressional bills - CONG-BILLTXT - Affords unofficial full text coverage of all versions of all bills from the current Congress, to which Westlaw adds references to existing legislation these measures may affect. Bill text coverage began with the 104th Congress, 1995 - CONG-BILLTXT104. (Bills originate from Thomas, a web site of the U.S. Library of Congress.) Find can be employed to retrieve the full text of a bill for which the year of introduction (1995 or later) and bill number are known, e.g. - Find: 1997 cong us hr 6 or Find: 1995 cong us s 555. However, to insure retrieval of all drafts of a bill for which versions may appear in both yearly sessions of a given Congress, it is preferable to conduct a citation field search in the appropriate Congressional database, e.g. - ci("hr 6") in CONG-BILLTXT105.
4. Congressional Record - CR - Available in unofficial full text since the 99th Congress, 1st session, 1985 (131 Cong. Rec.). Excludes Index and History of Bills and Resolutions.
5. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents - WCPD – Coverage begins January, 2000. Presidential signing statements, which appear in the Weekly Compilation, are available with citations to their official source from 1986 in USCCAN-MSG.
6. Compiled full-text legislative histories – “Comprehensive” legislative histories of twenty-seven major federal statutes compiled by the law firm of Arnold and Porter are currently available on Westlaw. Listed alphabetically by statute popular name under “U.S. Federal Materials>Arnold & Porter Collection - Legislative Histories”.

LexisNexis Full Text Legislative History Databases

LexisNexis provides a federal legislative history research primer that includes search template sample queries in its databases of the publications typically generated at each stage of the lawmaking process. Live database links are also given but those to the "current Congress" - for bill tracking and the Congressional Record - have not been updated to the 109th Congress.

1. Congressional committee reports - CMTRPT - Selective, unofficial full text coverage begins in January 1990. Full coverage commenced in 1993 (103rd Congress, 1st session). (The Sources path is: Legal>Legislation & Politics-U.S. & U.K.>U.S. Congress>Committee Reports.)
2. Committee hearings – For broadest coverage use the Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Hearings Summaries group file, HEARNG, to retrieve selected, unofficial hearing transcripts that may include coverage of question & answer sessions as well as written and oral witness testimony. Coverage variably dates by source from as early as 1988 (for the Federal News Service). The Sources path is: Legal>Legislation & Politics-U.S. & U.K.>U.S. Congress>Committee Hearing Transcripts. For best results search by witness name using the hlead rather than the witness, speaker or testimony-by segments. Dating from Jan.1,1994, the FDCH database that is the major component of Summaries is also available as an E-Resource on Factiva.com. Best results are obtained by a witness name and other search terms query limited to headline and lead paragraph in: Source>Publications-By Type>Transcripts>Congressional Testimony by Federal Document Clearing House.
3. Congressional bills – “Congressional Full Text Bills – Current Congress” (BLTEXT) provides unofficial full-text access to the bills of the current Congress. It offers the ATLEAST command for refining full-text word/phrase searches. Bills are archived in “Full Text Bills - Historical” in both combined Congress (BTXARC) and individual Congress databases commencing with the 101st Congress, 1st session (1989) - ( BTX101). “Congressional Bills and Bill Tracking – Current Congress” (BILLS) combines BLTEXT with BLTRCK, a database providing up to date status reports on currently pending bills. The LexisNexis Sources path for all of these databases is: Legal>Legislation & Politics-U.S. & U.K.>U.S. Congress.
   If its year of introduction and bill number are known a bill can be retrieved on LexisNexis by conducting a Get a Document citation search. In the "Get by Citation" box click "Citation Formats" and enter "Congressional bills" in the retrieved "Citation Format Assistant" box. Then in the appropriate bill citation form search box enter the year, back to 1989, and the bill number to access the House or Senate bill and its accompanying bill tracking report.
4. Congressional Record – “Congressional Record, All Congresses Combined” (RECORD) - LexisNexis Sources path is: Legal>Legislation & Politics-U.S. & U.K.>U.S. Congress - offers unofficial full text coverage from January 1985 (131 Cong. Rec). Does not include Index or History of Bills and Resolutions.
5. Committee prints (CMTPRN) - LexisNexis Sources path is: Legal>Legislation & Politics-U.S.& U.K.>U.S. Congress - Selective coverage of unofficial full text committee prints began with the 104th Congress, 1995.
6. House and Senate documents (HSDOCS) - LexisNexis Sources path is: Legal>Legislation& Politics-U.S. & U.K.>U.S. Congress. Unofficial full text availability of House and Senate documents, excluding Treaty Documents, commenced with the 104th Congress, 1995.
7. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (including the annually published Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States into which it is incorporated) - LexisNexis Sources path is: Legal>Federal Legal - U.S.>Executive Branch Materials>Public Papers of the Presidents. Coverage commencement date is March 24, 1979.
8. Compiled full-text legislative histories – Legislative histories of selected major federal statutes can be located on LexisNexis via two major Sources paths: Legal>Area of Law-By Topic>Choose topic>Statutes & Legislative Materials and Legal>Legislation & Politics-U.S. & U.K.>U.S. Congress>Legislative Histories. The latter links to the legislative histories of appropriations enactments for Federal Departments and Agencies since 1992.

Secondary Source Current Commentary

1. CQ Weekly - This periodical, published by Congressional Quarterly, Inc., contains detailed news summaries of Congressional activities and often provides 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). Langdell maintains a latest four years backfile of the print copy weekly issues. Longer backfile runs in print are available at Littauer (vol. 14, 1956 - ) and Gov. Docs (vol. 17, 1959 - ) and in fiche at the Kennedy School of Government (vol. 28, 1970 - ). 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 - (1969 to date) - This weekly magazine is an influential source of commentary on lobbying and Executive branch and Congressional activities 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 seeking the most recent coverage of Congressional floor action and committee activity. 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, a Harvard users only E-Resource. The subscription web version of the National Journal/CongressDaily includes a "Markup Report", archived since September 9, 1999, that provides comprehensive coverage of House and Senate committe subcommittee markup sessions including, if recorded, roll call votes on bill amendments and final actions. It is available on the computer network of the Kennedy School of Government Library.

State Legislative History Sources

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. The non-subscription service of InSession (TrendTRACK Co.) offers multi-state, full text word or phrase (but not proximity) searching for the latest versions of bills and bill status reports from the current sessions of state legislatures. The search result list links it provides are to the official state web sites.
   Other significant legislative history materials, 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.
   

Print source guides to state legislative history research

1. 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.
2. 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.

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