Introduction of Legislation

Legislation is the common term for the process Congress uses to makes laws, or more specifically how a bill becomes a public law or private law.  Public laws effect society as a whole and private laws effect a particular person, family or group.  Most bills enacted are public laws.  Public laws are published by date of enactment in the Statutes at Large.  Every six years, public laws are compiled by subject into the United States Code, which is a collection of all general and permanent laws currently in effect.  The U.S. Code shows the current status of laws and subsequent amendments. 

When a bill or resolution is introduced in the House or Senate it is assigned a bill or resolution number, the text is printed, and it is assigned to a committee. Full text of bills and resolutions can be found online:

• Thomas (101st Congress [1989]-present)
• House and Senate (best for currently active legislation; may link to the bill text on Thomas)
• LexisNexis Congressional (101st Congress [1989]-present)
• GPO FDsys  (103rd Congress [1993]-present)
• The American Memory Project at the Library of Congress, (House: 6th-42nd Congress [1799-1872], Senate: 16th-42nd Congress [1819-1872])

For bills and resolutions not available online:

• Sterling C. Evans Library 2^nd floor, microfiche.
• Pre-1933, on microfilm, may be borrowed from the Center for Research Libraries (search for Bills and Resolutions).

Committee Hearings
If there is sufficient interest and support in the legislation, congressional committee hearings may be conducted. Hearings contain the testimony of government officials and private individuals invited to appear before the committee to argue for or against passage of a bill. Hearings are used to find the range of views and interest groups associated with a bill. Most, but not all, hearings are printed. The full text of hearings may be available online from these sources:

• LexisNexis Congressional
  Look for "Hearings -- Digital Collection" in the search results list.
• GPO's FDsys -  104th Congress (1995 - present)

Committee Prints and CRS Reports
To aid members of Congress in their consideration of a bill, committee staff may compile relevant background information called committee prints. Use LexisNexis Congressional to search for prints. The full text of committee prints are available in LexisNexis Congressional by clicking on Advanced Search and selecting “Committee Prints & Misc. Publications.” A comprehensive listing of Senate hearings, prints, and publications, 1983 to the present, entitled U.S. Senate Bibliographies, is maintained by the North Carolina State University Libraries. Some of the committee prints are studies conducted by the Congressional Research Service. Selected Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports, which offer in-depth analysis of public policy issues, are also available in LexisNexis Congressional by clicking on Advanced Search tab and selecting “CRS Reports”

Reported Bill
Documents and Reports from committees to the full House or Senate explain the purpose of the bill, review past Congressional actions on the subject, and set forth the reasons the bill should be enacted. They also specify how the bill changes existing law and the bill's expected effects on the federal budget and the national economy. Sometimes there are minority or supplemental reports presenting the views of committee members who differ with the majority. Reports are identified by Congress and report number. Reports, along with Congressional documents, eventually get compiled into the Serial Set.

• GPO Access Congressional Documents and Reports 1994-current
  
• LexisNexis Serial Set 1789-1969
• Readex Serial Set 1789-1980 

Floor Debate (Congressional Record)
Speeches on the floor of the House and Senate are published in the Congressional Record, issued daily during sessions of Congress.

• GPO FDsys (1994 to present)
  
• LexisNexis Congressional (1789-1997) by clicking on the “Congressional Record Only” on the left side
  
• Thomas (1989 to present) 
• C-SPAN.org 

Votes
Not every vote in Congress is a "roll call" vote (in a roll call vote, each member's vote is recorded). Those that are can be found from a variety of sources.

President
Once a bill has been approved by both the House and the Senate, it is sent to the president for signature. If the president makes a statement when he signs or vetoes a bill, the text appears in the Compilation of Presidential Documents. Presidential signing statements from 1929-present are available online from the American Presidency Project (UC Santa Barbara). The message the president sends to Congress when he vetoes a bill is printed in Congressional Record, available online from

• LexisNexis Congressional (1873-1997)
• Compilation of Presidential Documents (1992-present)
• Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (1965-1999) Call number: GS 4.114: U.S. Documents (Evans Annex 5th Floor)
  

Public Law
An Act signed by the president becomes a law. Laws are published initially as separate pamphlets called slip laws and at the end of each session are collated in chronological order in the Statutes at Large. This is where you find the original law as it was first passed. Laws are then codified into the U.S. Code by subject. The U.S. Code only contains laws still currently in effect and shows subsequent amendments to the laws. 

• Public and Private Laws - FDsys - 104th Congess (1995-present)
  
• LexisNexis edition of the U.S. Statutes at Large, 1789-present 
•  LexisNexis U.S. Code Service
• GPO Access U.S. Code (1994 and 2006 editions)
  
• Campus Research Online U.S. Code Annotated
• Official U.S. Code - Call number - Y 1.2/5:year U.S. Documents (Evans Annex 5th Floor)
  
• United States Code Annotated - Call number - KF62 1927 .W45 Reference (Evans Library 1st floor)

Overview of the Process

How Our Laws Are Made, issued by the House of Representatives, describes the steps in the consideration of a bill and the documents produced at each step of the legislative process.



The Senate provides a list of the Congressional Sessions with corresponding dates.

The Senate Manual and House Rules, published at the start of each Congress, set down the specific details of procedure, committee jurisdictions and more.

Background Information
General and background information on legislative, presidential, and executive agency activities, as well as information on specific legislation can be found in:


CQ Congress Collection, and CQ Weekly

All of these resources can be searched together through the same interface. CQ Press Congress Collection presents a powerful research and reference tool that provides an analytical survey of the history and development; powers; personalities; current developments; and legislation considered and passed by the United States Congress.

For information on participants in the legislative process, see:

• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress 1774-present
• LexisNexis Congressional – click on Members and Committees 101th Congress-present
• Congress.org, a site maintained by a Washington, DC-based public affairs organization
• Project Vote Smart.

TIPS on using LEXISNEXIS CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATIVE HISTORY feature

On the left click on “Legislative Histories, Bills & Laws”

If you have the Public Law number, click on "Get a Document" on the left and fill in the Public Law number.

Click on "Search" and it will pull up a Legislative history link, click on the link and you will see a link to the Public Law itself, then a link to see the bill tracking report.

If you scroll down you will see related bills under the BILLS:

Then under References you will see DEBATE: which is where it was discussed in the Congressional Record. Note that the links are for the whole page, so you will need to find the links that discuss the act you are researching.

Then below Debate you will see REPORTS:  these are reports from the House and Senate Committees when they were drafting the Act.

Below Reports you will see HEARINGS: these are the hearings held by the committees of the House and Senate.

To access the Reports and Hearings, you will need to get the numbers and letters for that document, for example - H.Rpt. 101-485. Then click on “EDIT SEARCH” up at the top and click on the right “Congressional Publications” and click on “Search by Number” where you can type in the publication number by matching your document and fill in the blanks. That will take you to the full text of the reports and hearings.

Another place to look is Thomas

Click on “Advanced Search” to find the congress number and then Select Congress and where it says “Enter Search” scroll down for Bill Number and type in number - for example S.933

If there are multiple listings, then look where it says “Last Major Action” and the one you want should show the Public Law, for example:

Latest Major Action: 7/26/1990 Became Public Law No: 101-336

Click on the bill number link and it will take you to a screen that shows all information about the bill, the bill text, titles, cosponsors, a CRS Summary (this is from the Congressional Research Service, an authoritative source) and Congressional Actions which link back to the Congressional Record.

Another place to look is United States Code Congressional and Administrative News - The (U.S.C.C.A.N.) is a publication that collects selected Congressional and administrative materials for publication in a single resource.

In Evans library 5th floor KF48 .U5 and continued in Campus Research.

- Find a Bill, Find a Hearing, Find Congressional Debate - from UC Berkeley.

For more help contact me at - http://library.tamu.edu/directory/lsare