Free Legislative History

GPO FDsys provides free online access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government. Users can access public and private laws, bills, calendars, committee reports, committee prints, congressional documents, hearings, and the daily and bound editions of the Congressional Record.

GovTrack.us, a project of Civic Impulse, LLC now in its 10th year, is one of the worldʼs most visited government transparency websites. The site helps ordinary citizens find and track bills in the U.S. Congress and understand their representatives’ legislative record.

Provides the session of Congress along with the corresponding dates.

House bills (H.R.) and Senate bills (S.) require the approval of both chambers (ie House and Senate) and the signature of the President to become law. An engrossed bill is one passed by one house of congress, while an enrolled bill is one that has been passed by both houses of congress.

House Joint Resolutions (H.J. Res.) and Senate Joint Resolutions (S.J. Res.) require the approval of both chambers and the signature of the President. Joint resolutions generally are used for limited matters, such as a single appropriation for a specific purpose and to propose amendments to the Constitution.

House Concurrent Resolutions (H. Con. Res.) and Senate Concurrent Resolutions (S. Con. Res.) require the approval of both chambers but do not require the signature of the President and do not have the force of law. Concurrent resolutions generally are used to make or amend rules that apply to both chambers.

House Simple Resolutions (H. Res.) and Senate Simple Resolutions (S. Res.) address matters entirely within the prerogative of one chamber or the other. They do not require the approval of the other chamber or the signature of the President, and they do not have the force of law.

Congressional reports originate from congressional committees and deal with proposed legislation and issues under investigation. There are three types of reports: (1) House (H.Rept.) and Senate Reports (S.Rept.), (2) Senate Executive Reports, and (3) Conference Reports.

Congressional documents originate from congressional committees and cover a wide variety of topics and may include reports of executive departments and independent organizations, reports of special investigations made for Congress, and annual reports of non-governmental organizations. Congressional documents typically take the form of House Documents (H.Doc.), Senate Documents (S.Doc.), and Senate Treaty Documents (Treaty Doc.).

A hearing is a meeting or session of a Senate, House, joint, or special committee of Congress, usually open to the public, to obtain information and opinions on proposed legislation, conduct an investigation, or evaluate/oversee the activities of a government department or the implementation of a Federal law. In addition, hearings may also be purely exploratory in nature, providing testimony and data about topics of current interest.

The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The record consists of 4 sections: (1) Daily Digest, (2) House section, (3) Senate section, and (4) Extension of Remarks. Following each session of Congress, the daily Congressional Record is revised, printed, permanently bound and sold by the Superintendent of Documents in individual parts or by sets. The daily Congressional Record follows the following citation format: 142 Cong. Rec. 15466. The bound Congressional Record follows the following citation format: 158 Cong. Rec. H5618.

Congressional Committee Prints are publications issued by Congressional Committees that include topics related to their legislative or research activities, as well as other matters such as memorial tributes. The prints are an excellent resource for statistical and historical information, and for legislative analysis. The subjects of the Committee Prints vary greatly due to the different concerns and actions of each committee. Some basic categories of Congressional Committee Prints are: draft reports and bills, directories, statistical materials, investigative reports, historical reports, situational studies, confidential staff reports, hearings, and legislative analyses. An example of a citation is S. Prt. 109-88.

Presidents will occasionally issue written statements expressing their views on a bill they sign into law. While these signing statements have no legal effect, presidents do use them at time to convey their interpretation of the legislation and their intention to not enforce some aspects of the legislation.

Locate the Public Law number of the Statutes at Large citation. This can typically be found in the history section at the end of a statute.

Locate the bill number that corresponds to your Public Law or Statutes at Large citation. This can be found if you access these through a paid service, Congress.gov, or by using the Public Laws section of the House Calendar on FDsys.

After a law is proposed, it is the assigned to a committee for further refinement. This committee usually will produce a report stating the specifics of the bill including purpose and funding. The legislature is actually writing down its intent.

Bills undergo significant changes through the committee and amendment processes. Examining the markup means to examine the distinct changes to the bill as it goes through the legislative process. By pointing to individual changes, you can make persuasive arguments about congresses intent to remove or include certain provisions or interpretations of a bill. Bill markups can be found on individual committee websites.

Congress will often have hearings on different bills. These bring in outside experts to discuss the topic. While informative, these often do little to inform us of the legislature’s intentions toward a certain bill.

Use Congress.gov to locate other versions of a bill. This is especially useful when the House and Senate have taken up their own initial versions of a bill that eventually becomes one that will pass both chambers.

Think what you often see on CSPAN. Members of the legislatures go in front of their peers, and more importantly tv cameras to argue for or against a bill. It is often very difficult to gain any real meaning from these.

You can locate the history of a bill using the History of Bills located in the biweekly Congressional Record Index. The history of a bill will also be available using the House Calendar. The history of a bill provides information on when it was introduced, referred to committee, citations to the committee report, when it was debated, and when it was signed into law.

Once you have the history and the different versions of bills, you can now locate hearings, committee prints and reports, records of congressional floor debates, and any presidential documents, such as signing statements.

If similar bills from previous sessions contributed to the researched legislation, you may need to compile a legislative history of those bills as well.

After gathering your resources, consider the weight you should give each resource. Generally, the committee report is seen to have the most value in regards to statutory interpretation, with floor debates located in the Congressional Record coming second.

Law Library of Congress

Law Library of Congress

Georgetown Law Library

Georgetown Law Library

Georgetown Law Library