LibGuides: Federal Legislative History Materials: Compiled Legislative Histories

Why Use a Compiled Legislative History?

If you are doing in-depth research on a particular piece of legislation start with a compiled legislative history. If you just need to find the full-text of a particular piece of legislative history and have a citation, start with the Sources of Legislative History Chart.

A compiled legislative history is a detailed inventory of legislative source documents for a particular law put together by a commercial publisher, interested researcher or other third party. It is extremely useful for the researcher as it has the full-text, or citations to, the most important legislative documents, such as committee reports. It will save you an enormous amount of time if you find a compiled legislative history for the public law you are interested in researching.

Indexes to Compiled History Sources

CIS/Index and Abstracts
Arranged by Public Law number, this volume indexes and abstracts all documents relevant to a public laws from 1970 - present. Available on ProQuest Congressional and LexisNexis.
Print edition: Law Library Reference No Loan KF 49 .C62.
Federal Legislative Histories: An Annotated Bibliography and Index to Officially Published Sources
Covers Congressional, executive agency, and special commission sources published from 1862 through 1990.
Print only: Law Library General Collection (KF42 .F43 1994).
Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories
Available on HeinOnline and in print. Entries span 1789 - present. May contain links to full-text of legislative history documents available on HeinOnline (PDF).
Print edition: Law Library Reference Desk No Loan (KF42.2 .S68 2012).
US Code Congressional and Administrative News (USSCAN)
Available on Westlaw. Contains a legislative history table which lists for each Public Law: date approved, Statutes at Large citation, bill and report numbers, committees that recommended the bill, and dates of consideration and passage in the House and Senate.
Print edition: Law Library General Collection KF 48 .U54.

Databases Containing Full Text Compiled Histories

Congress.gov
Has bill histories from 1973 - present; for legislation from 1994/95 to present, many legislative history documents (reports, CR citations, bill versions, etc.) are linked and available in full-text (PDF).
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Use the advanced search to find bill summaries for prior congresses many with links to underlying legislative history documents.
HeinOnline U.S. Federal Legislative History Library
The U.S. Federal Legislative History Title Collection includes legislative histories for many important laws (PDF). Additionally the Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories database lists other legislative histories for many more laws. Some of the titles listed are hyperlinked in HeinOnline (PDF).

History of Bankruptcy This link opens in a new window
Legislative histories, treatises, and documents related to bankruptcy law in America. It also includes classic books dating back to the late 1800s and links to scholarly articles that are related to the study of bankruptcy in America. Available through HeinOnline (PDF).
BC Access: Resource is available via computers connected to the BC network. Off-campus access requires a BC username and password, and is available to the BC Community only (current students, faculty and staff.)

LLSDC Legislative Sourcebook
Has links to legislative histories on the internet, practitioner's guide to compiling a legislative history, union lists, and other resources. Prepared by the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C. Most resources available in PDF.
Lexis Advance - CIS/Index
The CIS/Index contains prepared legislative histories of all Public Laws enacted since 1970, with links to some full-text documents.
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Requires personal password. Personal passwords are restricted by our contract to currently enrolled law students and law faculty only.

ProQuest Congressional Publications This link opens in a new window
Compiled legislative histories for laws starting with 1969. The histories includes listings of all documents associated with the law, arranged by type of document. Recent histories typically link to the full text of the documents. This databases also has archival full-text of committee hearings from 1824.

To search, select the "search by number" tab, then select Find a legislative history by number from the "select task" menu.
BC Access: Resource is available via computers connected to the BC network. Off-campus access requires a BC username and password, and is available to the BC Community only (current students, faculty and staff.)
Taxation & Economic Reform Library (HeinOnline) This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 2,300 volumes and one million pages of legislative history materials and other documents related to taxation, economic reform, and stimulus plans. Available through HeinOnline (PDF).
BC Access: Resource is available via computers connected to the BC network. Off-campus access requires a BC username and password, and is available to the BC Community only (current students, faculty and staff.)

Westlaw Legislative Histories
Westlaw contains a number of federal legislative history resources including the GAO Legislative Histories (laws enacted from 1921-1995, with legislative history documents in PDF); USCCAN (selected reports and presidential documents for laws passed since 1948); and the Arnold & Porter collection (detailed legislative histories for selected federal laws).
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Requires personal password. Personal passwords are restricted by our contract to currently enrolled law students and law faculty only.

Federal Legislative History Materials

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Why Use a Compiled Legislative History?

Indexes to Compiled History Sources

Databases Containing Full Text Compiled Histories