Research Guides: Legislative History Research: Compiling a Legislative History

Where do I Start?

The two main ways to determine a legislative history for the bill or act you are researching:

Compile your own legislative history of your law using sources available on the internet or in JFK Library. See sources listed on this page.
Find an already compiled legislative history for your law (the work is done for you). A compiled legislative history saves an enormous amount of time by pulling all the relevant materials together. See the next section for sources and tools for finding a compiled legislative history on the internet or in JFK Library.

Congress.gov
Official website of the U.S. Congress. This site includes full-text access to statutes, bills, regulations, legislative history, and presidential materials back to the mid 1990's, and for some material it goes back further.
Updated the morning after a session adjourns. Consult Coverage Dates for Legislative Information for the specific update schedules and start date for each collection.
GovInfo
Provides access to official federal government publications, and securely controls digital content throughout its lifecycle to ensure content integrity and authenticity. Includes full-text statutes, bills, regulations, legislative history, and presidential materials starting with the 103rd Congress [1993-94]).
Statutes at Large, 1951 - current
Access from 1951 (Vol. 65, 82nd Congress) to 2012 (Vol. 126, 112th Congress).
The Statutes at Large is the permanent collection of all laws and resolutions enacted during each session of Congress.
Legislative history citations are included from 1963 (88th Congress).
Statutes at Large, 1789 - 1950
Access from 1789 (Vol. 1, 1st Congress) to 1951 (Vol. 62, 82nd Congress).
Bill numbers are included from 1904 (58th Congress).

Statutes at Large
Call Number: AE 2.111 (Reference US Gov Docs Main Level)

Contains the text of public and private laws compiled at the end of each session of Congress, and arranged by public law number. Bill numbers are included from 1904 (58th Congress) to the present. Legislative history citations are included from 1963 (88th Congress) to the present.
CIS Index Annual
Call Number: KF49 .C62 (Main Level Reference)

Each annual CIS Index published since 1984 includes three types of volumes: Index, Abstracts, Legislative Histories. Prior to 1984, a condensed version of the Legislative Histories volume was published in the back of the annual Abstracts volume.
If you have the public law number and the act was passed after 1983 use the appropriate annual Legislative Histories volume, then obtain the full text of documents that interest you online or in the JFK collection.
If the act was passed between 1970 and 1984, consult the Legislative History Citations section in the back of the Abstracts volume. Legislative history documents along with their corresponding CIS abstract numbers are listed. Submit interlibrary loan requests for material not available in JFK's collection.

Proquest Congressional
WSU resource available only from public computers at the Spokane Academic Library.
Contains the indexing and abstracting of the CIS Index to Publications of the United States, as well as full text of many federal bills, committee reports, hearings (testimony). Floor debates are published in the Congressional Record, and House and Senate documents.