COMPILED LEGISLATIVE HISTORIES:
A compiled legislative history is a resource
that has already researched and collected
all of the relevant legislative documents
(bills, hearings, committee prints, committee
reports, floor debates, conference reports
and presidential statements) for a particular
piece of legislation.
CONGRESSIONAL INFORMATION SERVICE (CIS) -
Legislative Histories:
[Reference Collection: KF49.C62, CD-ROM,
and LEXIS]. Since 1970, CIS has published
CIS Annual: Legislative Histories of Public
Laws, an annual volume with selected compiled
legislative histories. In addition, CIS has
released the Congressional Masterfile CD-ROM
set. This three-CD set is available at the
circulation desk and provides compiled legislative
histories for all public laws from 1969.
LEXIS is the only online provider of all
the CIS legislative histories from 1970 forward
(use the LEGIS Library and CISLH File).
UNITED STATES CODE CONGRESSIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE
NEWS (USCCAN):
[KF48]. This source is published by West
Publishing Co. and covers legislation passed
by Congress starting from the 77th Congress,
1st Session, 1948 to date. The texts of the
laws are arranged in chronological order
and selected documents of the legislative
history are included. These include House,
Senate, and conference reports. Reports not
reprinted are cited. However, bills, hearings,
congressional debates, committee prints,
and related executive materials are neither
printed nor cited. Significant dates such
as dates of consideration, passage in each
chamber of Congress, and approval dates are
given. For each session of Congress there
is a subject index and a legislative history
table arranged by public law number. The
table provides bill numbers, Statutes at
Large citations, report numbers, names of
committees, and Congressional Record dates.
THOMAS:
[http://thomas.loc.gov](click on Bill Summary
& Status) provides a service that approximates
a compiled legislative history in digital
form. Users of this service may find the
sponsor(s), cosponsor(s), official short
and popular titles, floor/executive actions,
legislative history, Congressional Record
page references, bill summary, committees
of referral, reporting and origin, subcommittees
of referral, links to other committee information,
amendment descriptions, and links to the
full text version of the bill (when available),
for legislation starting from the 93rd Congress
(1973).
Johnson, Nancy P., Sources of Compiled Legislative
Histories:
[Reference Collection: KF209.A4x No. 14].
This work is a bibliography of compiled legislative
histories through the 101st Congress, 2d
Session, 1990.
Reams, Bernard D, Internal Revenue Acts of
the United States:
[Compact Stacks] - This multi-volume set
compiles legislative histories for all tax
acts from 1909-1986. In addition to legislative
histories, the set includes administrative
documents related to the various pieces of
tax legislation.
SOURCES FOR RESEARCHING LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
When one cannot find a compiled legislative
history, it might be necessary to locate
relevant legislative documents using the
sources listed below:
CONGRESSIONAL UNIVERSE:
[This source is accessible form the law library's
home page under Online Subscriptions] is
an online service from Congressional Information
Service, Inc. (CIS). The service provides
a variety of information by, and about the
United States Congress. The service allows
one: to search an index of congressional
publications from 1970 to the present, retrieve
CIS Legislative Histories for public laws
going back to 1970, find testimony from congressional
hearings, track bills as they move through
the House and Senate, search the Congressional
Record and Federal Register, locate information
about members of Congress and committees,
as well as search the National Journal.
THOMAS (Legislative Information on the Internet):
Thomas is maintained by the Library of Congress
and is a rich source of information about
the United States legislature. [http://thomas.loc.gov].
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE (GPO):
[http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/index.html]
This source makes available in an electronic
format many of the publications that the
Government Printing Office makes available
on paper. Many of these documents are the
output of Congress.
LEXIS:
This source, available to law students and
faculty, provides access to numerous legislative
documents through the LEGIS library. One
can monitor the progress of emerging federal
statutes through BILLS, BLTEXT, and BLTRCK
files. The Congressional Record (file: RECORD),
enacted public laws (FILE: PUBLAW), and certain
compiled legislative histories (file: CISLH),
are also available.
WESTLAW:
This database, available to law students
and faculty, also provides access to numerous
legislative documents. One can track current
federal legislation with the Legislative
Tracking Calenders (Database: BNA-TRACK)
or Congressional Quarterly's Congressional
Bill Tracking (CQ-BILLTRK). In addition,
United States Code Legislative Histories
from 1948 (Database: LH) and Congressional
Record abstracts (Database: CQ-Briefs) are
also available.
THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD:
[Basement federal documents collection: X]
This source is a daily log of the activities
of Congress, including debates and speeches
in both the House and the Senate. Each session
has an index that gives citations to the
page of the Congressional Record regarding
a given bill. An additional index published
every two weeks during a congressional session
must be used until the cumulative bound index
is published. The Congressional Record is
also available on LEXIS (Library-LEGIS /
File-Record) and on Westlaw (Database-CR)
from the 99th Congress (1985). The Daily
Digest is a summary of the Congressional
Record that provides information on debates,
reports and conference committee meetings
on bills. The Daily Digest also includes
a chart that sets forth the important dates
of all bills enacted into law during that
session of Congress. The Daily Digest is
printed in the Congressional Record and is
also available on LEXIS (Library-LEGIS /
File-DIGEST) from 1985.
CONGRESSIONAL INFORMATION SERVICE (CIS) -
Index:
[Reference collection: KF49.C62]. Published
each year since 1970, the CIS Index provides
an index to legislative documents, abstracts
of the documents, and selected compiled legislative
histories. The CIS Index provides citations
to bills, hearings, and reports; important
dates in the life of a particular bill; citations
to the Congressional Record; and citations
to the Weekly Compilation of Presidential
Documents. Abstracts include names of witnesses
testifying at hearings, dates and some Superintendent
of Documents ("SuDoc") classification
numbers. This source is available in print
and is also available on the Congressional
Universe Web page.
DIGEST OF PUBLIC GENERAL BILLS AND RESOLUTIONS:
[Basement federal documents collection: LC
14.6:] This source was compiled by the Library
of Congress Congressional Research Service.
The law library has this digest from 1941-1990.
It summarizes all public legislation. However,
legislation reported out of committee is
described in greater detail. The "bill
digest" describes public bills and resolutions,
noting committee and floor action, sponsors,
identical bills, and short titles. The Digest
of Public General Bills and Resolutions was
usually issued in five cumulative volumes
during each session of Congress.
MONTHLY CATALOG:
[Reference collection: Z1223.H18] This source
is the most comprehensive list of federal
publications. It includes SuDoc numbers for
the listed documents, which can be used to
help locate the documents in the federal
documents collection. The Monthly Catalog
indexes government documents by subject,
title, and keyword.
CCH CONGRESSIONAL INDEX:
[Reference Collection: J69.C6] This source
is published by Congressional Clearinghouse
(CCH). It is very useful for locating current
information on the status of bills in the
current Congress. There are two volumes for
each Congress, one for action in the Senate
and one for action in the House.
CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY ALMANAC:
[Reference Collection: JK1.C66] This source
provides a textual discussion of bills enacted
into law, attempted amendments to acts, and
summaries of reports and debates.
CIS CONGRESSIONAL MASTERFILE:
This source is the CD-ROM version of the
CIS Index listed above. [CD-ROM at the Circulation
Desk]. Congressional Masterfile1 includes
records for the Serial Set (1789-1969), Senate
executive documents and reports (1817-1969),
published committee hearings (House and Senate
1833-1969), unpublished committee hearings
(House 1833-1954 and Senate 1823-1968), and
committee prints (1830-1969). Congressional
Masterfile 2 includes bibliographic records
(1970-present) for House and Senate documents,
executive and treaty documents, committee
prints, House and Senate hearings, House
and Senate reports, and legislative histories.
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