Bills are designated H.R. if they originate in the House of Representatives and S. if they originate in the Senate, and are given a number, which is in the chronological order with which they are introduced during the two-year period of a congressional term.  (See also Concurrent Resolution, Joint Resolution.)   Public bills deal with general questions and become public laws if approved by Congress and signed by the president. Private bills deal with individual matters such as claims against the government, immigration and naturalization cases, and become private laws if approved and signed.  Each printed version of a bill usually has some changes, allowing comparisons and illuminating choices made as the legislation developed. Varieties include: as introduced, as referred,  enrolled, engrossed, and enacted bills.    To track changes in legislation, GovTrack and Many Bills will help. 

Historical Bills: (House 1799-1873)  (Senate 1819-1873):

LoC American Memory web site

Bills issued between 1874 - 1932:

See a reference librarian

Bills issued between 1933 - 1989:

CIS Fiche Set (UES Law Library): 1933 – 1979

GPO fiche (UES law library):  1979 – 1989

Proquest Legislative Insight: 1929 - forward (in progress) for legislation that became law.

Bills issued after 1989:

Thomas (HTML and PDF): 1989 - date

U.S. GPO (PDF): 1993 – date

Lexis: 1989 - date

Westlaw: 1995 - date

Committee prints can be anything a committee wants to print – some   basic categories are: draft reports and bills, directories, statistical materials, investigative reports, historical reports, situational studies, confidential staff reports, hearings, and legislative analyses. The prints are an excellent resource for statistical and historical information, and for legislative analysis. The content of the prints will vary greatly due to the different concerns and actions of each committee.

Historical Prints: 1830 - present:

ProQuest Congressional (PDF and HTML): 1830 - present

Print (run a title search in Orbis): coverage varies

Proquest Legislative Insight: 1929 - forward (in progress) for legislation that became law.

Committtee prints from 1970 - present:

CIS fiche set (UES in law library): 1970 – date

Lexis & Westlaw (HTML): mid 1980s – date

U.S. Government Printing Office (PDF): 1995 - date

Hearings come in several varieties—legislative and oversight are most common—and any hearing can be published or unpublished. Not all congressional hearings are published, as each committee makes its own decision regarding which hearings are to be published. The transcripts of unpublished hearings are transferred to the National Archives. Senate hearings generally remain closed for 20 years, and House hearings remain closed for 30 years. Hearings that contain classified or sensitive material generally remain closed for 50 years.  When they are released, unpublished hearings are not normally published by the committees, although in unusual circumstances they may be.  ProQuest Congressional provides online access to published as well as some unpublished hearings.   There is also an annotated print index by that same publisher for unpublished Senate and House hearings.

Published Hearings:

ProQuest Congressional Published Hearings (PDF): 1824 – date

HeinOnline: 1927 - 1994; contains Covington & Burling’s collection of Congressional Hearings

Proquest Legislative Insight: 1929 - forward (in progress) for legislation that became law.

CIS fiche set (UES in law library): 1970 – date

Print (title search in Orbis): various      

Government Printing Office (PDF): 1995 - date

Lexis and Westlaw (unofficial transcripts):  mid 1980s – date

Unpublished Hearings:

Each committee decides which of its hearings are to be published. A committee may decide not to publish a hearing because it contains classified or sensitive information, because it pertains to private legislation, etc.   The National Archives has the transcripts of unpublished hearings. Senate hearings generally remain closed for 20 years, and House hearings remain closed for 30 years. Hearings that contain classified or sensitive material generally remain closed for 50 years.

Yale's Mudd Library has the CIS unpublished hearings fiche set from 1789 to present.  Yale also subscribes to ProQuest Congressional, which contains annotated indexing for unpublished hearings (Senate unpublished hearings from 1824-1984, and for House unpublished hearings from 1833-1972) and the full text of released hearings (1973 -1976).

There are three general types of reports: a) House and Senate Reports (deal with proposed legislation and issues under investigation); b) Senate Executive Reports (treaties and nominations); and c) conference committee reports (differences on legislation between the House and Senate have been committed to conference committees to work out a settlement).  For legislative history research, a committee report is an essential document because it explains the text of the bill and reasons behind the legislation.

American State Papers (L5 law library  and Online): 1789 – 1816

ProQuest Congressional: 1817 – date.  See also United States Serial Set (online and at MUDD Library)

LoC American Memory web site: 1823 – 1873

Proquest Legislative Insight: 1929 - forward (in progress) for legislation that became law.

USCCAN (Print and Westlaw):  1941 - date, selective coverage

CIS fiche set (UES in law library): 1970 - date

LexisNexis (HMTL): 1990 - date

Thomas / U.S. GPO (PDF): 1995 – date

Floor debates are generally located within the Congressional Record.  There are two versions of the Congressional Record — a daily edition and a permanent edition. The pagination is not the same and there is no cross-reference table. Each version contains the proceedings of Congress, separated by chamber. The daily edition has four sections: Senate, House, Extension of Remarks and Daily Digest.  Following each session of Congress, the daily Congressional Record can be revised by members of Congress, and then it is printed and permanently bound.  The permanent edition lacks the daily digests, but includes an index.

Predecessors to the Congressional Record are the  Annals of Congress  (1789 - 1824),  Register of debates (1824 - 1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833 – 1873). These are all available in the Library of Congress' web collection, A Century of Lawmaking, Proquest Congressional and in HeinOnline.

Fiche (Perm Ed., UES law library) and HeinOnline: 1873 – date

Proquest Congressional (Perm Ed.): 1873 – 1997

Proquest Legislative Insight: 1929 - forward (in progress) for legislation that became law.

Thomas (Cong. Rec. Daily Ed.): 1989 - date

Westlaw & Lexis (Daily Ed.): 1985 – date

U.S. Government Printing Office (Perm & Daily Ed.): 1994 – date

When the President makes a statement upon signing a bill into law, it is printed in the Public Papers of the Presidents and the Weekly (now Daily) Compilation of Presidential Documents.

Public papers in print and on HeinOnline (PDF): 1789 - date

Proquest Legislative Insight: 1929 - forward (in progress) for legislation that became law.

USCCAN print and Westlaw: 1941 - date

Lexis: 1979 - date

U.S. GPO: 1992 - date

Other useful sites for statements by the President include the White House website, the National Archives and the American Presidency Project.  For commentary on the legality and use of signing statements please see here.

The use of dictionaries at the Supreme Court is increasingly popular for various reasons.  Black's Law Dictionary is the most frequently used U.S. legal dictionary. It is available in print, on Westlaw (database: BLACKS) and as an iPhone app. 

Other popular dictionaries include:

Ballentine's Law Dictionary available in print and on LexisNexis.  This dictionary contains over 40,000 definitions of legal terms "based on the actual construction of those terms by courts of last resort, with each case cited to the page on which the definition appears."

Modern Dictionary for the Legal Profession in print and on LexisNexis.  In addition to explaining legal concepts like "lemon law," it also includes references to colloquial phrases heard in practice.

Words and Phrases available in print and on Westlaw.  Contains all judicial constructions and definitions of words and phrases by the state and federal courts from the earliest times, alphabetically arranged and indexed.

US Courts commonly used terms website and Westlaw's Glossary of Commonly Used Terms in Legal Research here.

Congressional Quarterly: Legislative news and analysis from Congressional Quarterly

The New Republic: Journal of politics and culture 

Index to Legal Periodicals: Index of law review articles 1918 - present 

Jstor: Contains scholarly articles in the area of law and political science 

New York Times and Washington Post

Legislative History Tutorial: Statutory interpretation, how legislative history is used in statutory construction, the legislative process and how to find the documents within a legislative history.  Length: 12 minutes

ProQuest Congressional Tutorial: How to uses ProQuest Congressional to find legislative history documents.  Length: 4 minutes

HeinOnline's Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories Tutorial: How to use HeinOnline to find compiled legislative histories and articles about a piece of legislation.  Length: 4 minutes

Classic LexisNexis Legislative History Research:  Interactive tutorial that teaches students about the different types of legal documents and how to find legislative history documents on Classic Lexis.