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Federal Legislative History, Sources & TreasuresThis selective guide introduces the major legislative history resources available to Cleveland-Marshall students. Please contact the Research Services librarians during their regularly scheduled hours , or via email to research.services@law.csuohio.edu for help in locating these or other resources to meet your needs.
Compiled Legislative Histories Federal Legislative History Comprehensive Checklist Authority Hierarchy of Legislative History Documents
All legal research is a search for truth. Truth understandably must be defined by the attorney as that information which will benefit the attorney in promoting the cause of the client. When the statutory law is newly enacted, without judicial interpretation and/or judicial whole cloth metamorphosis or; when jurisdictions have split regarding the meaning and/or application of said enactments, attorneys will find it necessary to examine the available legislative history. If the result of the attorney's research benefits his client, so much the better. If not, the attorney must be prepared to distinguish away those portions of the record that harm his client's position. In either case, an attorney ignores legislative history at the attorney's and the client's mutual peril. Judges differ regarding the weight and significance they give to results of the attorney's research, “legislative intent.” Some judges rely on it while others abhor it and your practice will find you before jurists from one extreme to the other. Your responsibility to your client includes knowing your judge's predilection and using that information to your client's best advantage. Presuming your judge entertains legislative history; different legislative history documents have differing levels of authority and persuasiveness. For instance, conference committee reports and committee reports tend to be the most persuasive type of legislative history authority. In any case, your job is to utilize whatever you can to support your argument for your client's position. To the extent that your legislative history research produces contrary positions or silence, your job is to distinguish those seemingly negative items away from your client's cause and find any and all legislative documents to support your client's position. Never allow the sometimes seemingly endless quantity of material to intimidate you in your quest to derive the intent of the legislature. Effective techniques and methods exist that will enable you to compile the legislative calculus in an efficient, timely, and cost-effective manner.
The Constitution of the United States (Article I, §8) states that Congress is vested with the authority to make laws. Congress meets in numerically designated two-year periods (2005-2006 is the 109th Congress) and generally the 1st year is the first session of that Congress and the 2nd year is the second session. Bills are proposed pieces of legislation. Upon introduction into either the House or Senate, each bill is given a number based on its chronological order of introduction during that term of Congress. Thus, “S. 1” denotes the 1st bill introduced in the Senate during the current term. After various readings of the bill, it is sent to a committee (e.g. the Senate Committee on the Judiciary), and sometimes a bill will then be assigned again to a specialized subcommittee (e.g. the Subcommittee on The Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights). Each committee is to analyze the bill with an eye that if passed, what the effects will be on constituents and existing law. To educate themselves and inform present and future debate, the committee has the power to hold hearings and take testimony from other congressional and non-congressional sources. The process of the committee can include hearings, debate analysis, rewriting and amendment of the original bill. Once hearings are concluded, the deliberative session of working on the legislation is commonly called the markup session. Upon completion of the markup session, the committee votes on whether to recommend passage or to table the bill. Recommendation of passage to the full chamber will include a committee-authored report (which may include a minority report authored by those opposed). If the committee tables the bill, it is said to have "died" as it is next to impossible to have a bill revived for additional consideration by the committee. Once a bill escapes the assigned committee, it goes to the full floor of the originating house of Congress where it is subject to further debate and amendment. Eventually, the chamber will vote on the bill and if it passes, it is sent to the other chamber of the Congress where it goes through the whole process (subject to that chamber's specific rules) as it did in the originating house. Before the President gets to sign or veto it, each house must pass it in identical form. Any differences between the House and Senate versions of a bill are sent to a Conference Committee, composed of members of both the House and the Senate. The Conferees attempt to craft a bill that will pass both the House and the Senate. Presuming the success of the Conferees, each of the full chambers will generally consider the new bill directly thus avoiding the committee structure. Once passed by both houses, the President can sign the bill, thus converting it to a Public Law (P.L. 108-1) or veto the bill. Vetoed bills can still become Law if both the House and Senate vote by two-thirds majorities to override the action of the President. If Congress does not adjourn for the ten business days after passage and the President does not act, the bill becomes law. If Congress adjourns before the conclusion of the ten-day period, and the President does nothing for the whole ten days, it is a pocket veto . Often accompanying the veto or signing of the bill by the president is a statement describing the President’s reasons for the action taken. These statements then become a part of the Act's legislative history as well.
As stated above a bill is a proposed piece of legislation. It may be introduced in either chamber of the Congress. Very few of the nearly 10,000 bills introduced during each Congress will go on to become laws. Bills not passed in the Congress of introduction do not carry over to the next Congress but must be re-introduced as a new bill. A sometimes critical examination involves reviewing and comparing similar unsuccessful bills from previous Congresses with the eventually passed legislation. There are many ways a researcher can locate the text of bills that have been introduced in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Our library keeps microfiche copies on the BASE level of the library in the Microform Area in the following microfiche cabinet drawers:
Of great assistance is the Final Cumulative Finding Aid House & Senate Bills ( KF 49.F5 F55, Index Shelf, near the Casual Reading Glass Wall, BASE level, Microform Area. The full texts of bills are sometimes printed in the Congressional Record ( KF 35 .U57, Law Stacks, 2nd Floor, Ranges 300A-301B) for the day the bill was introduced. But the best source by far for finding full texts of pending and recently enacted bills is Thomas, a service of the Library of Congress. Thomas contains summaries and status reports for all bills dating back to the 93rd Congress (1973 forward), and full texts of bills from the 101st Congress forward (1989 – present). Many bills are available online in the following sources:
Upon a bill's introduction, usually it is referred to a committee. Often that committee will hold one or more hearings or refer the bill to a subcommittee which will hold one or more hearings.
Congressional Committees hold hearings. Sometimes after legislation is proposed, sometimes before legislation is proposed and these hearings are designed to educate the Congress and the public. The Congress educates itself as to whether it should do something and hopefully educates the public as to why the public should care. Hearings also allow testimony by the governed. The three different types of committees are:
Published hearings (not all are published) contain transcripts of the testimony (questions asked by the legislators and answered by witnesses); exhibits submitted by witnesses or other interested parties; and occasionally, a reprint of a draft of the proposed bill. When relying on statements from Congressional hearings in making a legislative history argument, be careful to note the identity of the speaker. Testimony of a senator or representative sponsoring the legislation should be much more persuasive than that of any representative of a biased special interest group. The cynical researcher will want to explore both, with an eye to the potential real sources of amendment language during the legislative process. Published hearings are printed by the Government Printing Office. To find the citation for a hearing published or unpublished, use an appropriate index such as: CIS U.S. Congressional Committee
Hearings Index, 1833-1969 ( KF
40 .C56, Index Shelf, near the Casual Reading Glass Wall,
BASE level, Microform Area); CIS/Index , (Print), KF 49 .C62 , Index Shelf, near the Casual Reading Glass Wall, BASE level, Microform Area) includes citations to microfiche which contain the full texts of congressional hearings since 1970. Congressional Masterfile (Public
Research Workstations) contains Other full text sources for hearings include:
These reports from the committees should be given the most weight since they are issued by the group of legislators that knows the most about the bill if for no other reason than they have had the greatest exposure to the bill and the information surrounding its subject matter. These reports are published as individual items and their ID includes the number of the Congress, the session and sequential numbering (rarely is there ever a correlation between the report number and the original bill number (i.e. House Report 108-342 refers to the 342nd Report issued in the House during the 108th Congress and does not mean that the Report concerns House Bill 108-342). Reports are published by the Government Printing Office, and microfiche copies are available through the CIS Microfiche Library in the Law Library's Microform Area, BASE Level from 1970-Feb. 2004 in microfiche cabinets H2-P6). Other full text sources include:
The Congressional Record exists in two forms: the Daily Edition ( KF35.U57, Law Stacks, 2nd Floor, Range 301B) and the Permanent Edition ( KF35.U57, Law Stacks, 2nd Floor, Ranges 300A-301B). Thomas, the Library of Congress' web site for legislative information has a tremendous page explaining both editions of the Congressional Record. Additionally, The Harvard Law School's Library has an online pdf statement about the two editions. The debaters retain the ability to "revise and extend their remarks" and are almost always it happens "without objection." before they are published in the Congressional Record, even though it is generally thought of as a verbatim transcript of the happenings in Congress. In issues of the Congressional Record since 1978, the revisions and extensions of the actual floor testimony are noted by black bullets at the beginning and ending of the revision (Senate testimony) or by a change in typeface (House testimony). The Congressional Record is available electronically through Westlaw and LexisNexis and on the Internet through the Library of Congress' Thomas site. The permanent edition of the Congressional Record is available in the Law Library's Microform Collection, BASE Level: v.1/2 43rd Congress (1873/74)-v.122 94th Congress (1977) on Microfilm in Drawers ZZ4-ZZ12 v.123 95th Congress (1977)-present on Microfiche beginning in Drawer LL1.
Conference committee reports can be found in full text in the following sources:
Statements accompanying enacted or vetoed bills appear in:
These are also indexed in Presidential Executive Orders & Proclamations, KF 70 .A55 1986, Index Shelf, near the Casual Reading Glass Wall, BASE level, Microform Area - a print index covering 1789-1983.
Laws are initially published as slip laws. These new Public Laws are shelved in the Law Stacks on the 2nd floor, Range 303A ( KF 50 .U53 .) This is the first official printing of the law and it is issued in pamphlet form by the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). The U.S. Statutes at Large, (KF 50 .U5 Law Stacks, 2nd Floor, Ranges 302B-303A) are the official chronological accumulation of every law passed by Congress since 1789. In theory, Statutes at Large volumes would be delivered to the public at the close of each congressional session. The reality gives a perfect example of the oft cited phrase, "all deliberate speed." So, go first to West Publishing's U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News (USCCAN,) KF 48 .W45, 1st Floor, Reference Area, Ranges 203A-204A. USCCAN. While not the "official" version, West generally publishes the full text of recently passed slip laws in its advance sheets within a few weeks of passage, and in any event much more quickly than they are in the Statutes at Large. The best way to search for recent slip laws is online, as slip laws are available online well before they are available in any print sources. They can be found electronically on Westlaw and LexisNexis.. Federal government web sites such as GPO Access and Thomas, and the National Archives Office of the Federal Register, will also have copies of recent slip laws. Public Laws are then codified (arranged by subject) in the United States Code (KF 62 2000, 2nd Floor, Range 303A).Commercial law publishers, such as West Publishing and Lexis Publishing, publish "unofficial" versions of the U.S. Code -- the U.S. Code Annotated (USCA) and U.S. Code Service (USCS,) respectively. These commercial services can be particularly useful in that they cross-reference to other books issued by these publishers. These sets will also include references to case decisions, law review and journal articles, and other secondary sources such as ALR’s and Legal Encyclopedias. Full texts of Public Laws can be found online in the following sources:
Full text of Public Laws can be found on Microfiche via the CIS Microfiche Library in the Law Library's Microform Area, BASE Level from 1970-Feb. 2004 in microfiche cabinets H2-P6. To discover which Public Laws the Law Library has, in whatever form, on SCHOLAR do a Government Document Number search using the following search term: AE 2.110: .
Compiled Legislative Histories
Looking at one of the following indexes can give you an idea of whether a compiled legislative history exists, but keep in mind that not every item listed therein can be found in the Library:
Authors will frequently gather legislative history documents for major pieces of legislation. To identify such legislative history compilations in the Law Library's collection, do a keyword search in SCHOLAR, the Library’s online catalog, (e.g. “Patriot Act” AND “legislative history” via a Keyword search. ) Hein's federal legislative histories collection, KF 42 .H45 Microform Area, Base Level contains over 200 individual legislative histories of Federal Laws.
Federal Legislative History Comprehensive Checklist
Bills
Committee Prints
Committee Hearings
Committee Reports
Congressional Debates
Report of Conference Committee
Presidential Documents
Authority Hierarchy of Legislative History Documents
In general, those groups of legislators that have been either most directly or most recently involved with the enactment are believed to have the best notion of the intent of the legislature. Using that logic, conference committee reports and committee reports are thought to be the most authoritative documents. Of these two, conference committee reports are especially influential in determining legislative intent because members of both houses will, in the course of compromising on differing language, state their rationales for settling on one version of a bill over others. The various versions of a bill (amendments post introduction) are next in the hierarchy. Each change of text can be viewed as a legislative choice and are fertile subjects of interpretation or speculation depending on one's point of view.
An example of an excellent online interactive multimedia creation explaining Federal Legislative History can be found at the Chicago-Kent Website as it provides a fabulous overview of the topic. Other resources can and should be reviewed to better understand this process. On the Web Based Tutorials and Instructional Research Guides list, the Legal Research: Primary Resources: Legislation and Legislative History listing links to a number of legislative history tutorials.
Schuyler M. Cook, Govt. Info./Reference Librarian, March 28, 2006; rev. MR 1/2/07; rev. LER 4/17/07;mr/14/07 |
Introductory
Statements on both house floors