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Federal Legislative History Professor Lisa Smith-Butler Advanced Legal Research Fall 2014
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Federal Legislative HistoryProfessor Lisa Smith-ButlerAdvanced Legal ResearchFall 2014
Primary Sources of American Law
What are three primary sources of American law? Cases Statutes Regulations
How do you locate a statute on point?
Citation 11 U.S.C. §362 (2012 & Supps.)
Popular Name Patient Protection and Affordable Care
ActSubject Index or Keyword
Searching “fair use” & copyright
Code vs. Session
What is the difference between a code and a session law?
Why consult a session law?
Why would anyone ever need to do a legislative history?
Frequently there is a dispute as to the correct interpretation of a statutory provision. Sometimes this results from: poor statutory drafting; deliberate usage of ambiguous language; or passage of time.
When the meaning of a statute is disputed, litigation often ensues.
Thus it is necessary to ascertain the legislative intent of the legislature.
How do we conduct a legislative history?
In order to ascertain the legislative intent, one must: identify, locate, and obtain the relevant
documents; & analyze these documents.
Identifying the Documents
In order to compile a legislative history, it is necessary to work with the following documents: congressional bills; congressional hearings; congressional committee reports; congressional committee prints/re-prints; congressional debates; & presidential bill signings & vetoes.
Congressional Bills
Bills are introduced into either the U.S. Senate or House by a member of one of those chambers.
Each bill receives a bill number, indicating S for Senate or H for House. The bill is introduced into the legislative chamber by reading the entire text aloud on the chamber floor. It is then referred to the appropriate committee.
When citing to a bill, use the bill number assigned as well as referring to the number of the Congress and the session number, i.e. H.R. 5344, 113th Congress, 1st Sess.
Congressional Bills
Once referred to a committee, a bill rarely emerges as it entered.
Bill variations ensue, and these are essential to ascertaining legislative intent.
Language is added, amended or deleted. This process is usually necessary in order to satisfy a number of legislators and ensure passage of the bill.
Locate H.R. 3548, 113th Cong.
H.R. 3548, 113th Cong.
Hearings
Frequently, Congress holds hearings before a bill is passed.
Hearings consist of: questions asked by the legislators; answers given by witnesses, including
expert witnesses; and exhibits submitted.
Hearings
As evidence of legislative intent, hearings rank lower than either committee reports or variations of bills.
Hearings carry less weight than committee reports or bill variations because: partisan advocates of legislation often
appear as witnesses. Usually there is also disinterested,
objective testimony from expert witnesses.
Can I view a hearing or read a transcript?
Check out House Hearings.
Committee Reports
Most bills that actually make it out of committee are accompanied by a committee report.
Committee reports may be made by either the House, Senate, or a combination of the two.
In terms of ascertaining legislative intent, committee reports rank very highly.
Committee Reports
Committee reports are ultimately shared with the entire legislative chamber.
After the bill is referred to Committee, committee members have an opportunity to: study the bill; make recommendations for changes in
bill text; conduct hearings about the bill; & provide reasons for their changes and
analysis of the bill.
Where can I find a Committee Report?
Free sites that provide access include: Congress.gov FDsys House Senate
Fee based sites that provide access include: Lexis Advance HeinOnline ProQuest Congressional Universe WestlawNext
Committee Prints
Committee prints often accompany committee reports for a particular bill.
Committee prints are textual reports of: studies done by committee staff or
outside experts on a piece of pending legislation; or
views of members of the committee regarding the bill.
Congressional Debate
The Congressional Record is a daily record of the debates that occur in both the House and Senate among colleagues. Publication began in 1873.
Once a bill has been reported out of committee, it is debated on the floor of the legislative chamber.
These debates become the text of the Congressional Record.
Can I listen to Congressional debates or read them?
C-SPAN CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
Presidential Documents
If the president signs a bill, passed by both legislative chambers, it becomes law. Usually there are remarks made at the time a bill is signed into law.
These remarks can usually be found in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents as well as the Congressional Record.
The same process holds true when the president vetoes a bill, requiring 2/3’s override by both legislative chambers.
Where can I read Presidential Remarks?
WHITE HOUSE FDSYS
Process of Compiling a Legislative History
Having decided upon the necessary documents, the researcher must next locate the appropriate tools to help locate the documents.
Several tools exist to help the researcher, including: compiled legislative histories;
CIS; CCH Congressional Index; Congress.gov/; Digest of Public General Bills and Resolutions (available
through 1990); Statutes at Large/ United States Code Congressional &
Administrative News; & Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications
(ceased print publication in 2004.)
Compiled Legislative Histories Frequently, another researcher has already
located the relevant documents, including the bill, hearings, committee report, and public law number.
These sources are referred to as compiled legislative histories
Check out: Nancy Johnson’s Compiled Legislative Histories,
available initially in print but now an online database in HeinOnline;
Bernard Reams, Federal Legislative Histories: An Annotated Bibliography and Index; &
Irving Sloan’s American Landmark Legislation.
Where Can I Find Legislative Histories?
Congress.gov HeinOnline ProQuest Congressional WestlawNext
CIS
Congressional Index Service (CIS) began publication in print in 1970.
CIS attempts to organize the legislative history process. With CIS, House and Senate hearings, reports, and re-
prints are listed and abstracted. While the abstracts provide useful information such as hearing numbers, bill numbers, and report numbers, the print version does not provide access to full text.
Access is via indexing of subject, bill number, bill name, or witness.
As with all things legal, CIS has merged, first with Lexis Nexis. Lexis Nexis then sold the database to ProQuest.
The electronic product is now known as ProQuest Congressional.
Does a compiled legislative history exist for H.R.3590, 111th Cong., 1st Sess?
Where would I look? Check out ProQuest Congressional.
Where can I find ProQuest Congressional?
Scroll down the screen.
The Search
The Result.
The Documents
The Bills.
The Reports.
The Hearings.
The Committee Prints
The Debate.
The President.
Bloomberg Law, HeinOnline, Lexis & WestlawNext: Limited Legislative History
Bloomberg Law, HeinOnline, Lexis Advance and WestlawNext all provide some access to federal legislative history although it is very limited in comparison to Congress.gov and ProQuest Congressional.
Bloomberg Law provides access to the USC, the Statutes at Large, bills, the Congressional Record and some CRC reports.
Bloomberg Law
HeinOnline
HeinOnline has a Federal Legislative History Library.
This library has selected compiled legislative histories.
These selected compilations can be searched via Congress or Popular Name.
Selected coverage is available from 1789 to the present.
Access includes the public law text and committee reports, hearings, and prints when available.
HeinOnline
Lexis
WestlawNext
Congress.gov
Where could I find deceased bills in print format?
Check out the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, D.C. and their Practitioner's Guide to Compiling a Federal Legislative History.
Digest of Public General Bills and Resolutions
Publication of this resource began in 1936 in print format by the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress. Publication ceased in 1990. From 1936-1990, this government resource issued a publication for each Congressional session.
It served as a finding tool rather than access to the full text of bills.
Digest of General Public Bills…
This digest indexed all bills introduced into Congress during a particular legislative session, including those bills that stalled in committee or were otherwise rendered inactive until re-introduced in a later legislative session.
The Digest was indexed by: Subject; or Sponsor.
Statutes at Large
The Statutes at Large are the official session law publication of the U.S. government. In addition to the chronological arrangement of laws passed during a particular legislative session, this publication sometimes includes committee reports.
United States Code & Congressional Administrative News
The United States Code Congressional & Administrative News (USCCAN) is a commercial publication of the session laws of the U.S. government.
It too includes committee reports. It is available via WestlawNext.
Monthly Catalog of US Government Publications
The Monthly Catalog began publication in 1951 by GPO access. Print publication ended in 2004 but electronic publication is available at http://catalog.gpo.gov/F .
The print format indexed all publications produced by federal agencies. The electronic version allows access via author, title, subject heading, conference title, and ISBN as well as providing other avenues of access.
Secondary Sources
Check out Christian Mammen’s Using Legislative History in American Statutory Interpretation
Ron Brown’s Statutory Interpretation: The Search for Legislative Intent
Conclusion
Questions? Stop by the Sol Blatt Jr. Law Library Reference Desk. We’re glad to help!
Call 843-377- 4020 or email [email protected]
