Federal+Legislative+History+Materials

=Federal Legislative History Materials=

__Introduction__

We typically look at legislative history documents to determine the legislative intent or meaning behind a particular statutory section. It has been widely debated whether legislative history research is worth the time and effort. Regardless, when you are questioning the meaning of a statute and no other source (cases, administrative code etc…) is helping, you will need to perform legislative history research.

__Overview__

The __flow chart__ provides a good overview of the legislative process. Each step in the process includes a section for documents produced and where you can find the document.


 * **Committee Prints**: special studies about specific subjects prepared for the congressional committee.
 * **Committee Reports**: after bill is sent to committee, it is either reported out or dies in committee. If reported out, a report is generated and includes revised text of bill, analysis of intent and rationale of committee’s recommendation.
 * **Conference Committee Report**: a conference committee is convened to reconcile different versions of a bill. Members are Representatives and Senators. The report contains recommendations for reconciling the differences between the 2 bills and a statement explaining the effect of their actions.
 * **Congressional Debates**: usually take place after a bill has been reported out of committee. During debates, legislators may propose amendments to a bill and discuss ambiguous provisions.

__Where to Start__

It helps to know the public law number, statutes at large number or bill number for a statute or pending legislation you are researching. Depending upon the publication chosen and what you know, you might have to search other indexes the publication offers.


 * CIS Index (print), materials in microform**
 * Contains index, abstract, and legislative histories of US public laws volumes.
 * Index volume contains detailed indexes by subject, title, bill, report, document, hearing, and print number.
 * Legislative history of US public laws volumes lists, in public law number order, references to the bill number, committee reports, hearings, Congressional Record entries.


 * Congressional Universe**
 * Electronic version of CIS Index
 * Can perform a citation or keyword search.


 * United States Code Congressional and Administrative News** (USCCAN)
 * In print and on Westlaw
 * Good for finding some committee reports and presidential signing statements.


 * Legislative Impact and Regulatory Impact database on Lexis**
 * Good for alerting you to changes on a particular statute or pending legislation.


 * Congressional Record**
 * Good for transcripts of debates on proposed legislation.
 * Includes a daily edition consisting of 4 sections (House, Senate, Extension of Remarks, Daily Digest)
 * Also includes a permanent, bound edition not paginated like daily edition. Use indexes as an access point.
 * Also on GPO Access, Thomas, Westlaw, HeinOnline and Congressional Universe.


 * Free Websites**
 * __Thomas__: good for finding bills, searching the Congressional Record, finding committee reports and bill status and summary.
 * __GPO Access__: good for finding bills, committee prints, committee reports, congressional hearings, and searching the Congressional Record.

> o Includes some full text, PDF federal legislative histories. > o Includes //Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories, A Bibliography of Government Documents, Periodicals, and Books//: a good resource that provides references to print and electronic sources for a particular piece of legislation.
 * Compiled Legislative Histories**
 * Various publishers have put together multi-volume sets that include the legislative history documents for a particular law.
 * Check **HeinOnline’s U.S. Federal Legislative History Library**
 * **__Monthly Catalog of US Government Publications__**: good resource to find legislative history documents.
 * Some compiled histories are on Westlaw and Lexis.

__Miscellaneous__
 * The CIS Index started in 1970. To find pre-1970 legislative materials, you can check the United States Congressional Serial Set. Sometimes pre-1970 legislative materials are hard to find. The NYS Library is a good resource.
 * As a general rule, materials were not in electronic format until the 1990’s.