Preliminary Matters
Compiled legislative histories may be found for many popular federal acts. ProQuest Legislative Insight is your best bet. There are no formal requirements for crafting a legislative history and some are more comprehensive than others. Finding a less comprehensive legislative history is still a good start.
If you can find a compiled legislative history, then someone else has done much of the work for you.
Finding tools for Compiled Legislative History - Federal (only)
- HeinOnline Sources of Compiled Legislative HistoriesElectronic version of print title. Searchable bibliographic database to find compiled legislative histories.
- Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories byCall Number: KF42.2 .S68 2018, Reference CollectionISBN: 9780837740690Publication Date: 2018This new edition is updated with nearly 1,200 new laws and 1,800 new bibliographic entries and includes two types of compiled legislative histories. The first part of this book includes works issued by commercial sources and legislative histories by topic. The second part, the main portion of this work, includes works compiled for major laws. The third and final part contains an Author-Title Index (to Part I) and a Public Law Index (to Part II). Beginning with the 113th Congress, this new edition also includes a summary of each source at the conclusion of every entry to provide further insight into sources and the ways in which they may be useful for further research.
Resources for Compiled Legislative Histories
Electronic Sources of Compiled Legislative History
Federal
- Legislative Insight (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Premier source of compiled legislative history materials for federal laws enacted since 1929. Database contains most full text documents affording one-source convenience. The timeline view shows the legislative process of a bill and lets you sort the documents by steps in that process.
- HeinOnline Legislative History CollectionSearch by title, public law number, or popular name. Database contains most full text documents.
- Legislative Histories of Select Laws on the InternetFree sources of compiled federal legislative histories maintained by the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.
- Lexis IRC Legislative HistoriesProvides a chronology of the creation, revision, and/or repeal of the IRC section(s). Approximately 1,500 IRC sections are included. Expert in-house staff reviews each committee report in its entirety and selects only the most relevant excerpts to include in the Tax Advisor-Federal Code Legislative Histories. The Public Laws that affect each IRC section are listed in reverse chronological order. Excerpts from the corresponding conference committee report for each Public Law are listed first, followed in order by excerpts from the Senate and House reports, where applicable. The Tax Advisor - Federal Code and the IRC Legislative History file offers links to Public Laws, congressional committee reports, statutes and case law in its legislative history documents. Updated regularly.
- Congressional Reports Legislative History (Westlaw)All congressional committee reports, including reports on bills that did not become law, beginning with 1990. Also sets out the legislative history of public laws as reprinted in U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News (USCCAN) from 1948 through 1989, as well as the legislative history of securities laws beginning with 1933 and presidential signing statements reprinted in USCCAN beginning with 1986.
- DOJ Legislative HistoriesSelect histories compiled by the U.S. Department of Justice.
- U.S. Code Congressional & Administrative News (Westlaw)Includes Legislative History Reports (documents from U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News) and Legislative History Table (listing of Public law number, U.S. Statutes at Large page, Bill no., House and Senate report nos., and dates of passage). Coverage varies by document type.
- GAO Federal Legislative Histories (Westlaw)Legislative histories for most U.S. Public Laws enacted from 1915 to 1995, as originally compiled by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
California
There are no publicly available sources of compiled California legislative history.