Introduction
Understanding federal legislative history can be a vital component to interpreting the meaning of enacted legislation. Knowing the history behind a piece of legislation prior to enactment can act as persuasive authority in court, whether to clarify statutory language or interpret legislative intent. The strongest legislative document is usually a Congressional Report. Here you will find more analysis as well. Next comes Bills and Congressional Debates. These will also give you background information and analysis. Other legislative material should be considered but will likely involve more factual basis rather than persuasive authority.
Order of Priority
Legislative History Documents and Order of Priority Generally
1) Public Law (the plain text of the law is the most binding in any interpretation)
2) Committee Reports (look for the section-by-section analysis)
3) Congressional Record (remarks & debate - especially from chief sponsors)
4) Bill Texts (how provision changed in its various stages, including related bills)
5) Congressional Hearings (especially related testimony from implementing agencies)
6) Congressional Committee Prints (often includes some kind of study or analysis of the bill)
7) Presidential Signing Statements (found in Compilation of Presidential Documents)
Legislative History Tools
- ProQuest Legislative Insight This link opens in a new windowThe place to start when you have a public law citation and need all related full-text legislative history documents from the 1st Congress (1789) to the 116th Congress (2019), including bills, reports, hearings, documents and more. Also search for individual documents by number.
- ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new windowMost complete access to U.S. legislative history materials. Index now complete from 1789-present. Links to full-text when available.
- U.S. Federal Legislative History Library This link opens in a new window
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From HeinOnline. In addition to the inclusion of actual federal legislative histories published by the U.S. GPO and private publishers, this database also includes a unique finding aid based on Nancy Johnsons award-winning work, Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories. Researchers should begin their U.S. federal legislative history research with this finding aid, which often includes references to law review articles on-point to a particular legislative history. - U.S. Congressional Serial Set (HeinOnline) This link opens in a new window
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From HeinOnline. The records in this series include House and Senate Documents, House and Senate Reports, the American State Papers, and much more. - U.S. Congressional Serial Set (Lexis) This link opens in a new window
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Full-text PDFs of all House and Senate documents and reports (1777-Present), including legislative and investigative reports, and Senate executive documents. Log in with your Lexis account to access. - U.S. Congressional Serial Set (Readex) This link opens in a new windowFull-text searchable images of reports, documents, and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives from 1817-1980.
- American State Papers This link opens in a new windowThe American State Papers constitutes rich primary source material on many aspects of early American history from 1789 to 1838.
- Congress.govOfficial website for U.S. federal legislative information. Find legislative calendars, bill text, laws, and committee documents from 1995 and earlier.
- govinfoFree public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.
Other Helpful Tools
- Legislative SourcebookNice variety of research guides from the Law Librarians Society of Washington D.C., explaining the federal legislative process and how to find legislative histories.
- Dates of Congress TableThis helpful table includes both the dates and sessions of Congress which can help you narrow down which year a bill was passed based upon its Congressional session.
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