Find basic information about the legislation in question

To identify the public law number, begin with the United States Code (U.S.C.), United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.), or the United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.). U.S.C.A. is the most helpful of the three because it includes citations to the United States Code Congressional and Administrative News (U.S.C.C.A.N.):

• In the code, look up the section and see the historical references that appear immediately after the statutory text. You will see original and amending public law numbers, dates they were approved, and citations to the Statutes at Large.
• If you do not know the code section but know the name of the legislation, begin with the Popular Name Table found generally at the end of the set. Otherwise, begin with the Subject Index.

Check U.S.C.C.A.N. for references to legislative history documents

Check U.S.C.C.A.N. which reprints selected legislative history (for legislation enacted since 1944) and provides the bill number, date of enactment, and a list of all committee reports for all laws passed by Congress. Each volume of U.S.C.C.A.N. covers a particular Congressional session and contains reprints of the Statutes at Large session laws or committee reports; the spines of the volumes should say “Laws” or “Legislative History.”

• The U.S.C.A. annotation (step 1), will refer you to a particular Legislative History section in U.S.C.C.A.N.
• If you know the public law number, use the public law numbers on the spines of the volumes to select the appropriate Legislative History volume of U.S.C.C.A.N.
• If you know the Statutes at Large citation, locate the appropriate Statutes at Large reprint by relying on the spines of the volumes. The reprint will give page references to the Legislative History sections.
• Subject index in the last volume for the year gives page references to the Legislative History sections.

The first page of a typical Legislative History section provides the following information for a public law:

• Public law number and Statutes at Large citation,
• Dates of consideration and dates of passage by both houses,
• Numbers of the House and Senate bills,
• Committees to which the bills were assigned,
• Numbers and dates of committee reports,
• Volumes and years of the Congressional Record where the debates appear, and
• List of legislative history documents reprinted in U.S.C.C.A.N.

Read the legislative history materials reprinted in U.S.C.C.A.N. The materials are edited (to reprint only those portions that are thought to be most helpful); omissions are shown by asterisks and official page numbers are in brackets.

Use finding tools to find CIS accession numbers

The most comprehensive tool for researching federal legislative history is produced by Congressional Information Service (CIS). The CIS system has two components: finding tools and the documents themselves. The CIS system has two sets of tools and two sets of documents, divided by date of enactment of the legislation: 1789-1969, 1970-present.

The finding tools aid in locating legislative materials for bills where some action took place after the bill was introduced. For bills enacted as public laws, CIS compiles citations to the legislative history documents, most of which are reproduced in microfiche by CIS.

Finding Tools for Legislation Enacted from 1970 to present

• Online: LexisNexis Congressional
  Select “CIS Index,” then “Legislative Histories by number.”
  • Search by public law number, by Statutes at Large citation, or by bill number. You can also search by subject, keywords, title of publication, committee, names of witnesses, or document number.
• Print:
  • CIS Index
    Law Micro Index KF 49 .C64
    These black bound volumes are located near the Reference Desk. Annual Index volumes are eventually replaced by Four-Year Cumulative Indexes volumes. The index volumes provide indexes by subject, title, bill, report, document, hearing, and print number. Use the index volumes in conjunction with the CIS Abstracts which is located next to the index volumes. The abstract volumes are published annually and are useful in determining if a particular document is likely to be pertinent. Next to the abstract volumes are the CIS Legislative History volumes which are very useful because this is where you find compiled citations to legislative history documents available for legislation from 1984 to date.

Finding Tools for Legislation Enacted Prior to 1970

• Online: LexisNexis Congressional
  Select "Congressional Indexes, 1789-1969"
  • Search by bill number to find documents associated with a bill such as committee reports, Senate executive documents & reports, committee prints, published and unpublished hearings.
• Print:
  • CIS US Serial Set Index (1789-1969)
    Law Micro Index Z1223 Z7 C57
    These burgundy bound volumes are located near the Reference Desk.
  • CIS US Congressional Committee Hearings Index
    (1833-1969)
    Law Micro Index KF40 C47
    These blue bound volumes are located near the Reference Desk.
  • CIS US Congressional Committee Prints Index
    (mid 1800’s to 1969)
    Law Micro Index KF40 C48
    These green bound volumes are located near the Reference Desk.
  • CIS Index to US Senate Executive Documents & Reports
    (1817-1969)
    Law Micro Index J74 C57
    These two black volumes are located near the Reference Desk and are an index to Senate documents and reports not printed in the CIS US Serial Set.

Locate the Documents in the CIS Fiche or Online

• Online:
  • LexisNexis Congressional
    Contains bills, transcripts of hearings, selected committee prints, House and Senate documents, committee reports, and the Congressional Record, generally from late 1980’s to date. The online versions are unofficial versions and omit charts, graphs, tables, page numbers, and supplementary materials from hearing records. However, the online versions allow for full-text searching and the more recent documents are available more quickly than in other formats. You may use the CIS Accession number by selecting the option for "Bibliographic" search.
  • Thomas
    The following links are most useful in compiling a legislative history: Bill Text, Congressional Record Text Search, Congressional Record Index, and Committee Reports.
  • GPO Access
    The following links are most useful in compiling a legislative history: Congressional Bills; Congressional Committee Prints; Congressional Hearings; Congressional Record; Congressional Record Index; History of Bills, House, Senate, and Executive Reports; House, Senate, and Treaty Documents; and Public and Private Laws.

Once you have a CIS accession number from one of the finding tools, use the accession number to locate the document in the CIS fiche (located at Law Micro). Note that bills are in a separate fiche set, therefore you will not need a CIS accession number.

• CIS Microfiche (1970 to date)
  For bills that became public laws, CIS reprints hearings, committee reports, committee prints, House and Senate documents and other documents in microfiche, arranged by CIS accession number. Excluded are the text of bills and floor debates. For text of bills, see below. For floor debates, see Congressional Debates.
• CIS US Serial Set (1817-1969)
• U.S. House Bills, U.S. Senate Bills (various versions including amendments and revisions)
  The set is first organized by chamber (House or Senate), then by Congress. Text of House bills, resolutions, joint resolutions, and concurrent resolutions are available from 96th Congress, 1st Session to date. Text of Senate bills, resolutions, joint resolutions, concurrent resolutions, and printed amendments are available from 96th Congress to date.

Page maintained by Steve Donweber
Last updated: August 2006