Legislation

Below are some major sites for investigating the development of a piece legislation through various stages: introduced as bills in the House or Senate, analyzed via committee reports or hearings, published separately as public laws, and integrated as part of the U.S. Code.

THOMAS - A comprehensive web site maintained by the Library of Congress for investigating recent legislation. Legislative information includes:

	Full text of all versions of House and Senate bills	(101st Congress - )
	Digests and legislative history of bills and amendments.	(93rd Congress - )
	Congressional Reports	(104th Congress - )
	Congressional Record	(103rd Congress - )
	Public Laws	(104th Congress - )
	House Committee Schedules and Oversight plans

GPO Access - Databases maintained by the Government Printing Office. Legislative resources include:

	Congressional Bills	(103rd Congress - )
	History of Bills	(1983 - )
	Senate, House and Executive Reports	(104th Congress - )
	Senate, House and Treaty Documents	(104th Congress - )
	Congressional Record	(1994 - )
	Congressional Record Index	(1983 - )
	Public Laws	(104th Congress - )
	U.S. Code	(2000,1994, plus supplements)
	Code of Federal Regulations	(1996-2003)

U.S. Code - Office of the Law Revision Council, U.S. House of Representatives, offers this web site to examine the U.S. Code. Search by keyword or citation, or browse titles and chapters for downloading. A thorough description of the currency of the database is provided.

Congressional Lexis-Nexis - (UCSD only.) Use this database to search for bills (full text back to 1989), public laws, testimony, legislative histories, regulations and more. Search the U.S. Code, updated monthly.

Legislative History

Sources of Legislative History - This site, maintained by UC Berkeley Law School Library, provides convenient tables comparing resources for finding legislative history through committee reports, hearing testimony, congressional debate, and presidential documents.

Legislative Process

United States Legislative - From the Law Library of Congress, linking to online descriptions of how federal laws are made.

Research Guide - Compiling a Federal Legislative History. A step-by-step guide to doing legislative history from Hastings Law Library.

History of Lawmaking

A Century of Lawmaking for A New Nation, U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1873. Part of the American Memory Project from the Library of Congress. Includes Annals of Congress, journals of the Continental Congress, House and Senate, U.S. Serial Set documents and more.

Historical Congressional Documents Provided by the Library of Congress. Browse or search through Early Congressional Documents, The Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and The Constitution of the United States.