Research Guides: Education Law: Legislative Histories

About

Legislative history research can be helpful in shedding light on the meaning or intent of a particular piece of legislation or of specific language contained within that legislation. When a question arises concerning the applicability or interpretation of a statute, a legislative history can be compiled or consulted to better understand the reasons for the enactment of that statute.

Documents used to research legislative history include:
• Committee hearings, prints and reports
• Congressional debates
• Congressional Record
• Presidential records
• Supreme Court decisions
• Various versions of a bill

Locating Legislative Histories

ProQuest Congressional Publications
Provides daily updated information¸ including full text of bills starting in 1989¸ public laws starting in 1988¸ committee reports starting in 1990¸ House and Senate documents starting in 1995¸ Congressional hearings starting in 1987-88¸ Congressional Record starting in 1985¸ Federal Register starting in 1980¸ National Journal starting in 1977 and other government information. Users can 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 and committees¸ and search the National Journal.
ProQuest Legislative Insight
Congress produces a variety of publications as a bill moves through the legislative process on its way to becoming a law. A compilation of these full text primary source publications produces a legislative history that is valuable to a wide variety of researchers. Legislative Insight offers a research citation page that not only links to the full text of the associated primary source publications¸ but allows users to do a Search Within from that very page that searches the full text of all the associated publications with one-click. Full-text publication types associated with a legislative history include the Public Law¸ all versions of enacted and related bills¸ Congressional Record excerpts¸ and committee hearings¸ reports¸ and documents.
Congress.gov
Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. It is presented by the Library of Congress (LOC) using data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Publishing Office, Congressional Budget Office, and the LOC's Congressional Research Service.

U.S. Federal Legislative History Library The Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories Database is derived from the looseleaf publication Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories: A Bibliography of Government Documents, Periodical Articles, and Books by Nancy P. Johnson. All compilations for major laws are included in the database with the following exceptions: appropriations measures; ceremonial matters; laws that extend the life of an agency or authority; and laws that affect small numbers of persons or specific regions of the country. The sources for these compilations include congressional documents, legal periodicals, treatises and looseleaf services.