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Legislative History Research: Federal Sources

This is a guide to help legal researchers find legislative history to aid in the interpretation of statutes.

United States Code Congressional and Administrative News (USCCAN): This resource includes, among other things, full text of new federal laws, selected committee reports from the House and Senate, and Presidential signing statements. The law library has this in print up to 2012.

Congressional Record: The law library has the congressional record in print up to the present issues.The Congressional Record includes floor debates, bill texts, and statements of introduction.

Congressional Serial Set: The Congressional serial set consists of the following congressional publications after 1817: House reports, Senate reports, House documents, Senate documents, Senate executive reports, and Senate treaty reports. Available on microform.

American State Papers: This set covers early executive and congressional documents from 1789 to 1838. 

Statutes at Large: The official statutory laws of the United States. The Law Library has up to Volume 129 (2015).

United States Code: The federal statutory code. In print, the official U.S. Code is published every six years with the last edition printed in 2018. Yearly supplements update the official code.

 

HeinOnline: Hein is a great resource for obtaining legislative history documents including some precompiled legislative histories. Here you can find the Serial Set (House reports, Senate reports, House documents, Senate documents, Senate executive reports, and Senate treaty reports), Congressional Hearings, CRS Reports, Compilations of Presidential Documents, and more. Hein has extensive coverage back to some of the earliest documents.

Westlaw: You can find many legislative history documents under the history tab of the statute. The newer the statute, the more likely Westlaw has coverage of it's legislative history.  Westlaw has he standard legislative history resources and bill tracking.

Lexis: Allows access to bills, congressional hearings, The Congressional Record, committee reports, committee prints, veto messages, roll-call votes, signing statements.

 

Congress.gov: Through congress.gov one can access slip laws, bills, the congressional record, reports, and hearings as far back as 1973, with more being added day by day.  Congress.gov presents this information from a legislative perspective and tracks bills from introduction to passage.   This resource also has good search capabilities. If you know a bill number or public law number, congress.gov can give you a wealth of information.

Govinfo.gov is the Government Publishing Office's official source for authentic digital versions of government documents.  Most titles published by the United States will also have digital analogs available on Govinfo.gov.  This resource has the Compilation of Presidential Documents (which contains signing statements & veto messages), bills, Congressional documents, hearings, the Congressional Record, reports, session laws, and United States Code.  You can check the coverage of each collection here. Unlike Congress.gov, Govinfo.gov doesn't focus on the legislative process, but rather on open access to government publications.

CRS Reports: For CRS Reports since 2018 use the Congressional Research Service page here. Prior to 2018, try the University of North Texas (UNT) collection.