Library Guides: Legal Studies: Legislative Histories

What is a legislative history?

A legislative history is a collection of documents that are produced by Congress as a bill goes through the legislative process of becoming a public law. Legislative histories can help you determine the intent, meaning and purpose of a particular law. The types of documents found in a legislative history will include the following:

Bills (original and later versions)	House and Senate reports
Committee hearings	Congressional debates
Commitee prints	Presidential statements
Committee and Conference reports

This page focuses primarily on legislative documents and resources available electronically through the Howard-Tilton Library's subscription databases, or freely available through the U.S. government. For print resources or more indepth legislative assistance, please contact the Tulane Law Library at 504.865.5952.

CRS Reports

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is the non-partisan public policy research arm of the United States Congress. CRS experts prepare reports to assist members of Congress throughout the legislative process, providing background information and data on public policy issues.

ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive resource of historic and current congressional information, including bills & laws, hearings, CRS reports, committee prints, reports, and the text of the Congressional Record. Researchers can explore Congress in action with the most comprehensive online resource available for congressional publications and legislative research.
The resource includes abstracts and indexing for congressional publications, and legislative histories. It also includes member biographies, committee assignments, voting records and financial data; and the full text of key regulatory and statutory resources.

Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports
Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a think tank that provides research reports to members of Congress on a variety of topics relevant to current political events. However, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) does not provide direct public access to its reports, nor are they released to the public via the Federal Library Depository Program (FDLP). There are several organizations that collect and give access to subsets of published CRS Reports. This collection attempts to bring all CRS Reports together in one place. For more information on CRS, see the Sunlight Foundations CRS Reports backgrounder (http://bit.ly/CRSReports). Please contact James Jacobs (jrjacobs AT stanford DOT edu) if you know of additional sites hosting CRS reports.
U.S. Department of State
Congressional Research Service Reports (CRS) and Issue Briefs specific to foreign affairs provided the the U.S. State Department from 1999 - current.

Where do I find...?

Document Type	Description	Recommended Database
Bills, Amendments, Resolutions	Proposed legislation, which may take many forms	Congressional (1789-present)
Debates	Official proceedings and debates are published daily in the Congressional Record	Congressional (1789-present)
Hearings	Committees may decide to publish publicly held hearings, two months to two years after they are held	Congressional (1824-present)
Committee Prints & Conference Reports	Findings and recommendations of committees, reported back to the House or Senate as a whole	Congressional (1817-present)
Public Laws	Enacted legislation that affect the general population. For each session of Congress, all acts and resolutions are published chronologically in the U.S. Statutes at Large. These are then codified and integrated by topic into the U.S. Code.	Congressional, or FEDsys (1951-present)

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Guide to the Legislative Process
"How Our Laws Are Made," a detailed outline of how Congress works, provided by the Library of Congress.

ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive resource of historic and current congressional information, including bills & laws, hearings, CRS reports, committee prints, reports, and the text of the Congressional Record. Researchers can explore Congress in action with the most comprehensive online resource available for congressional publications and legislative research.
The resource includes abstracts and indexing for congressional publications, and legislative histories. It also includes member biographies, committee assignments, voting records and financial data; and the full text of key regulatory and statutory resources.

Fedsys
Provides free online access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government. Official search engine of the Government Printing Office (GPO).
1993-present
more...less...
Coverage varies by document type, but most collections include 1995-present.
HeinOnline: Congressional Docs
Contains a complete library of U.S. federal legislative and congressional documents.
1774-present
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Includes:
- Journals of the Continental Congress (1774-1789)
- Annals of the Congress (1789-1824)
- Register of Debates (1825-1837)
- Congressional Globe (1833-1873)
- Congressional Record (1873-present)
Congress.gov (fka THOMAS)
Access to legislative information, provided by the United States Congress.

Turchin Business Library

Legal Studies

Subject Guide

What is a legislative history?

CRS Reports

Where do I find...?

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