Library Guides: Basic Legal Research: Library Guide: 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.

Top Picks

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
Comprehensive collection of historic and current congressional information, including bills, debates, hearings, CRS reports, committee prints, reports, and the Congressional Record.
1789-present

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
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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)

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
From the Advanced Search page, limit your results to CRS reports only. A great way to get started on Congressional research of any kind.
CRS reports: 1916-present

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.

Legislative Document Types

Common Document Types	Description
Bills, Amendments, Resolutions	Proposed legislation, which may take many forms
Debates	Official proceedings and debates are published daily in the Congressional Record
Hearings	Committees may decide to publish publicly held hearings, two months to two years after they are held
Committee Prints & Conference Reports	Findings and recommendations of committees, reported back to the House or Senate as a whole
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.