Guides: U.S. Legislative Process: Major Document Sites/Legislative Histories

Introduction

This guide covers government publications produced in the federal legislative process of the United States, from the proposal of a bill to the enactment of a public law. These documents include bills, hearings, prints, reports, Congressional proceedings, and public laws.

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Major Sites for Legislative Documents

ProQuest Legislative Insight
Legislative Insight 1789-2012 covers over 27,000 laws, including all CIS histories from 1970-2012 (many with updated research and indexing) and approximately 18,000 new histories from 1789-1969. New laws from 2013-forward are added on an ongoing basis.
ProQuest Congressional
U.S. legislative publications and government information. Much of the material is fulltext. Includes pending bills, laws, legislative histories, committee reports and documents, Congressional hearings and select committee prints, and biographical data about members of Congress.

Congress.gov
Congress.gov is the official source for federal legislative information. Covers 1973-present. See Content and coverage.
GovInfo
Service of the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO), which is a Federal agency in the legislative branch. Provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government. Content includes bills from 1993 to the present, House and Senate Documents and Reports from 104th Congress (1995-96) forward.
Hein Online - U.S. Congressional Library
Content includes bound and daily versions of Congressional Record, its three predecessor titles, and other important congressional material
HeinOnline - U.S. Federal Legislative History Library
More than 2,500 titles published by the US Government Publishing Office, William S. Hein, and several leading law firms. The typical legislative history compilation presents the text of the final public law, House and Senate bill variations, Congressional hearings and reports.
GovTrack.us
Bill and Congressional vote tracking, 101st Congress (1989) to present, with older enacted bills and votes. Offers an alerting service for email notification of activity on specific bills.

Reference Works on Legislative Histories

Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories : A Bibliography of Government Documents, Periodical Articles, and Books, 1st Congress-114th Congress
(AALL Publications Series no. 14). William S. Hein, 2018.
Arranged by Congressional Session and Public Law number. Provides bibliographic citations to 7,750 published legislative histories for 3,306 US laws. Annotations indicate the nature of the work, e.g., "Cites to Documents: Lists Cites", "Actual Documents: Reports, Hearings, Debates". Also includes introductory chapters on topical legislative history compilations, other reference works, and background readings on legislative histories.
• A searchable database version of this work, with links to fulltext within HeinOnline, is available in the U.S. Federal Legislative History Library.
LLSDC's Legislative Source Book
Law Librarians' Society of Washington, DC Legislative Research Section.
A link list of legislative history and generally useful online documents and websites on researching legislation.
Popular Name Tool, United States Code (Office of the Law Revision Counsel)
USCS Popular Names Table (Nexis Uni)
The USCS Popular Names Table arranges all acts by popular name. The table includes the name of the law, the public law number, and the general classification in the United States Code. You can search the USCS Popular Names Table by public law name or public law number.