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Current Legislative Histories

See also: U.S. House of Representatives (http://www.house.gov/) and U.S. Senate(http://www.senate.gov/). These sites provide congressional schedules, committee hearing schedules, floor reports, roll call votes and links to member and committee offices.

Background Information on Current Legislation

Congressional Digest. 1921 - current (monthly).
Location: ALADIN
A single political controversy in each issue, providing a general introduction and history, an outline of proposed legislation, and both sides of the controversy.

Congressional Quarterly Almanac. 1970 - current (annual).
Location: READY REF JK 1 .C66 for latest Ed. (Earlier years in Stacks at the same call number.)
Each chapter covers the significant legislation for the year in a major subject area.

Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report. (CQ Weekly) 1946 - current (weekly).
Location: ALADIN and Periodicals Collection/3rd floor.
CQ Weekly covers legislation from the issue or controversy, to the introduction of legislation, and finally to the final legislative action.

Congressional Quarterly Researcher. (CQ Researcher) 1982 - current.
Location: ALADIN and REF H 35 .E35.
Each report covers a single subject of current public interest, providing background, historical time lines, conflicting points of view, and possible future developments, including an excellent bibliography of books, articles, government documents, reports, web resources, etc.

CQ.COM on Congress.
Location: ALADIN
Legislative developments as they occur, with daily updates. Access to government documents, legislative summaries, committees coverage, congressional member profiles and congressional schedules.

Historical Documents

Text of Bills, Committee Action, Reports, Hearings, Testimony, and Roll Call Votes

Use these sources to floor debate, to which committee or subcommittee the bill was sent, whether hearings were held, whether a committee print or report was issued, and the full text of each of these documents.

CIS/Annual Index. 1970 - current.
Location: REF KF 49 .C62
Each year's issue consists of two volumes. The first is a subject index and the second has an abstract of each document indexed, which include Congressional committee hearings and other Congressional publications. After 1984 a separate volume for legislative histories was issued, CIS Annual: Legislative Histories of U S Public Laws, which groups the citation for each document under the legislation to which it pertains. Each entry includes a gov doc call number. Gelman is a partial federal depository library and may have a paper copy. Check ALADIN to see if we have the document.

Jacob Burns Law Library. The George Washington University.
Jacob Burns Law Library, here at GWU, has a microfiche collection of the full text of nearly all the hearings, prints, and reports that have been indexed in the CIS/Annual Index (above) since 1970, organized by accession number. Use the CIS/Annual Index (Gelman REF KF 49 .C62) to get the accession numbers.

Congressional Record [title varies]. 1789 - current (daily while Congress is in session).
Location: REF J11 .R5, earlier years in microfiche, check ALADIN for details.
Check the Congressional Record for the day that legislation on an issue was introduced. The Congressional Record Index, back to 1873, is on microfiche. The Index is also available online from the GPO, back to 1983.

House Reports. Senate Reports. Dates vary.
Location: Government Documents Microfiche Y1. 1/2 (Serial Set), 3rd floor.
These are reports issued by the Committee that considered the bill. The Committee Report on the bill is one of the most important documents of the law's legislative history. The Report describes the purpose of bill and the reasons the Committee recommends approval, cost estimates, any executive request about the bill, the text of changes in existing laws, and Committee amendments to the original bill. Use the CIS/Annual Index (REF KF 49 .C62) to find the document's classification number, which begins with Y1. The microfiche collection is organized by the document's classification number.

Committee Prints. Dates vary.
Location: Check ALADIN Catalog
Committee prints are studies prepared by the staff of a Congressional committee or by the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, containing analysis of a problem, research papers, proposed solutions, bibliographies, and other useful material. Use the 'Guided Keyword' search in ALADIN and use 'committee print', as a phrase, as one of the search terms.

Congressional Hearings. Dates vary.
Location: Check ALADIN Catalog
Search by title or keyword in the ALADIN Catalog. Use the word 'hearing' as one of the search elements in a 'Guided Keyword' search.

Congressional Roll Call Votes and Roll Call Vote Tables.
Senate: http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/a_three_sections_with_teasers/votes.htm
House: http://clerk.house.gov/legisAct/votes.html
101st Congress, 1st Session (1989) to present.

Federal Government Resources: Legislative Branch .
Location: University of Michigan Documents Center web site at http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/fedlegis.html.
Links to various other sites that have hearings.

U.S. Congressional Laws and Debates: 1774-1875.
Location: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lawhome.html
Digitized collections of legislative documents.

American State Papers. 1789-1838.
Location: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwsp.html
Legislative and executive documents of Congress during the period 1789 to 1838.

United States Congressional Serial Set. 1817-1917.
Location: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwss.html
The Serial Set contains the House and Senate Documents and the House and Senate Reports. NOTE: The entire set has not been digitized, only portions.

Presidential Action

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents. 1978 - 2006.
Location: Microfiche, check ALADIN
Statements, messages, and press conferences of the President on many subjects, including legislation.

Rules and Regulations

Federal Register. back to 1936.
The Jacob Burns Law Library, here at GWU, has a microfiche collection of the Federal Register that extends back to its inception in 1936.

Overview of the Legislative Process

How Our Laws Are Made.
Location: Library of Congress website at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/lawsmade.toc.html
Detailed description of the process.

The Legislative Process: Tying it all Together.
Location: U.S. House of Representatives website at http://www.house.gov/house/Tying_it_all.html

Legislative Histories, United States Congress.
Location: University of Michigan website at http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/legishis.html

U.S. Government Documents: The Legislative Process
Location: Columbia University website at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/dsc/legproc.html

For more information, call the Reference Desk at 202-994-6048 or use the E-mail Reference Form. This page is maintained by Janet Olsen.

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