Federal Legislative History:  A Research Guide*

Introduction:

Federal Legislative History can be complicated and time-consuming, but if one understands the process on how a bill becomes a law, and then how the law may or may not be changed as the process continues, one can at least eliminate much of the confusion.

This Federal Legislative History research guide attempts to be as uncomplicated as possible.  Two sections will follow the Overview of Process section.  One will list, with brief explanations, the paper resources to be consulted and used while compiling a Federal Legislative History; the other, the electronic resources.  Paper resources will have noted the call numbers in the Marquette Law Library's collection.  The electronic resources will have links and dates of availability.  Some of the links will be restricted access due to licensing agreements the library has with commercial publishers.  Other links will be available because they are Federal government sites.

The final section of this research guide will list bibliographies containing sources of Federal Legislative Histories.

Good luck in your research, but remember to consult with a librarian if you have questions or problems.

Overview of Process:

1. A bill is introduced by either the House (designated H.R.) or the Senate (designated S).  A bill then is usually sent to a committee which will recommend the bill become a law or not.
2. Committees may hold hearings.  Witnesses will give testimony.  Witnesses may represent government, industry, science, and/or regular citizens.  Besides testimony, hearings may include exhibits, prepared statements, and transcripts of questions and answers.  Questions are asked by members of the House or Senate Committee.
3. The Committee considers the bill after holding the hearing.  This committee session is called a mark-up session.
4. If the Committee votes for passage of the bill, a Committee Report is issued.  The full House or Senate will then debate the report/bill.
5. Committee Prints may be issued to help committee members during deliberations.  These aids may include hearing excerpts, research results, etc.
6. House or Senate Documents may include Presidential messages or signing statements.
7. Finally, a bill comes out of committee and is debated in the House or Senate.  The debate is printed in the daily CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, as may be, any amendments.  A vote is taken and the bill may go back to the committee or sent the other chamber of Congress.  When the bill moves on to the next chamber of Congress, the same process begins again.  If the other chamber votes for the bill, it goes to the President who either approves or vetoes the legislation (bill).
8. If the President approves, (s)he may add a signing statement.  The bill now becomes a law and is given a Public Law number (e.g. P.L. 109-48) and is published in the STATUTES-AT-LARGE.
9. The President's signing statement or veto will be published in the WEEKLY COMPILATION OF PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS and the PUBLIC PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENT.  On occasion, these statements may also appear in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD and often as House or Senate Documents

Paper Resources:

PUBLIC LAWS (also referred to as slip laws); the bill number, the date enacted, the Public Law number, and the text of the law appear on this document; KF 50 U53

UNITED STATES STATUTES-AT-LARGE; the Public Laws are compiled, in order of their appearance, in theses bound volumes; KF 50 U52 (1789-)

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD; the Congressional debates on the bill, as well as any amendments, Presidential signing statements or vetoes, will be printed in the RECORD; KF 35 C663 (current paper session in stacks, previous four years in Archives, 1873- available on microfiche)

CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE; preceded the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD; KF 35 C662 (1833-1873 available in microfilm)

UNITED STATES CODE (official, Federal Government issued); may use to find Public Law numbers of laws currently in effect; the History Notes at the end of each Code section will frequently provide cites to legislative documents; also, beside the General Index to the Code, note the Popular Names Index and cross-reference tables; KF 62 [year] A2

UNITED STATES CODE SERVICE (USCS); KF 62.2 C82 and UNITED STATES CODE ANNOTATED (USCA); KF 62.3 C621 are both commercially published; they are the most current of the print versions of the Code

UNITED STATES CODE CONGRESSIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE NEWS (USCANN); includes Public Laws, some Committee Reports and Presidential signing statements (with 1985-); also cites to Committee Reports not printed in USCANN and has references to volumes and dates of mention in the Congressional Record; KF 51 U49 (1952-); for 1942-1950 see KF 51 U47

CIS INDEX AND ABSTRACTS/LEGISLATIVE HISTORIES; you may search the annual Index by subject, bill number, bill sponsor, report number, committee name, chairperson or witness to find the citations of all legislative documents; use the CIS number you found and go to the Abstracts which will give a detailed summary of each document; or, if you have a Public Law number, go to the Legislative Histories for a list of all legislative documents arranged by Public Law number; LAW REF Z 1223 A2 C56

EXAMPLE OF HOW SOME OF THE RESOURCES LISTED ABOVE WOULD BE USED:

You need to know about the Federal Legislative History of the Lemon Law.  First, you go to the USCS Popular Names Index and look-up Lemon Law; you find that the law is actually the Magnuson-Moss Warranty-Federal Trade Commission Improvement Act; in the index, under Magnuson-Moss… you will find the following:  Jan. 4, 1975, P.L. 93-637, 88 Stat.2183, 15 USCS sect. 2301 nt. (this tells you when the law was enacted, the public law number, the volume of the UNITED STATES CODE SERVICE it appears in); you may also go to the 1976 CIS SUBJECT INDEX and look-up the name of the law; you will see a list of topics concerning the law and these letter-number combinations (only a few are listed as examples), 76 H 501-54, 76 H 502-38, and S 262-4; having written down these numbers, you can now visit the Media area of the Library and go to the microfiche cabinets marked CIS, locate the drawer which is marked 1976, the fiche are divided in various categories, you will want to locate the divider that says H 501, then look for fiche number 501-54, and then continue to find all the fiche from the numbers you had written down (NOTE:  H designates House, and S designates Senate); you can then go to a fiche reader/printer to look at the fiche (print, if want or need to) to find all the reports, etc. that make up the legislative history for the Magnuson-Moss Warranty-Federal Trade Commission Improvement Act.

Electronic Resources:

FEDERAL REGISTER; lists the numbers of the most recent PUBLIC LAWS; available via link in MARQCAT bibliographic record for FEDERAL REGISTER; or, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html

UNITED STATES STATUTES-AT-LARGE; available electronically via link in MARQCAT bibliographic record; or, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/statutes/index.html

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD; available (1994-) electronically via link in MARQCAT bibliographic record; or, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/crecord/index.html

UNITED STATES CODE; currently the 1994 through 2000 editions are available at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/index.html

WEEKLY COMPILATION OF PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS/PUBLIC PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS; available through several electronic links via the MARQCAT bibliographic record; or, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/wcomp/index.html

CIS INDEX AND ABSTRACTS/LEGISLATIVE HISTORIES; available via LEXIS (must have subscription to Lexis); using the Research system, go to Federal Legal - U.S., then Legislative Histories & Materials, and finally to US - CIS Legislative Histories and/or CIS/Historical Index

Also, on the Law Library's webpage, see Electronic Resources - Databases and Subscriptions (left-hand column); click on Congressional Universe (a Lexis/Nexis product), go to Legislative Histories; you may do a keyword search or get a document via Public Law number, Statute-At-Large, or enhanced bill number

WESTLAW; in Search these databases, type in legislative histories, and you will see a list of legislative histories; you will want the first one on the list, Legislative History - U.S. Code, 1948 to present (LH); USCCAN committee reports and signing statements can be found on WESTLAW'S legislative history (LH) file.

Bibliographies:

SOURCES OF COMPILED LEGISLATIVE HISTORIES (Nancy Johnson)

REF KF 42.2 S68

UNION LIST OF LEGISLATIVE HISTORIES (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.)
[2000-]  KF 42.2 U61

FEDERAL LEGISLATIVE HISTORIES:  AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY AND INDEX TO OFFICIALLY PUBLISHED SOURCES (Bernard Reams)KF 42.2 R42 1994

*This is to acknowledge the following as sources used in composing this Federal Legislative Research Guide:

Federal Legislative History Research, University of Miami Law Library, http://library.law.miami.edu/fedleghisguide.html

Federal Legislative History Research:  A Practitioner's Guide to Compiling the Documents and Sifting for Legislative Intent, Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C., Inc., http://www.llsdc.org/sourcebook/fed-leg-hist.htm

LAO 2/07