Use the historical notes at the end of the citation to find the Public Law number. Many sections of the U.S. Code will have multiple P.L. numbers as the sections have been amended multiple times. It is helpful to know the approximate date the law passed to zero in on the relevant Public Law.
Find the Public Law number in Shepard's Acts by Popular Name (REF KF 90. S52) or look in the popular name tables in the pamphlets at the end of the U.S.C.A. or U.S.C.S.
A depository law library is usually the best place to research federal legislative history. For any given piece of legislation, the following documents may exist:
| Document | Location |
| Congressional Bills |
Congressional Record - Rows 2/99 -104 Proquest Congressional Publications (1987-Present) http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/indexes/congcomp |
| House & Senate Reports |
Congressional Serial Set (Y1.1/2) - Rows 2/105-108 Proquest Congressional (1970-Present): http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/indexes/congcomp Readex U.S. Congressional Serial Set (1817-1980): http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/indexes/us_congressional_serials |
| House & Senate Documents |
Congressional Serial Set (Y1.1/2) - Rows 2/105-108 Proquest Congressional (1970-Present): http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/indexes/congcomp Readex U.S. Congressional Serial Set (1817-1980): http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/indexes/us_congressional_serials |
| Committee Prints |
Publications prepared for the use of committee members and staff. Not available for most bills. Some committee prints are distributed to depository libraries. Not all committee prints are directly related to legislation. Hein: selected committee prints 103rd to 110th Congress http://heinonline.org/HOL/Index?index=alpha/A_comprint&collection=congrec Proquest Congressional (1970-Present): http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/indexes/congcomp Rutgers School of Law-Camden: Selected documents 1970's to present http://njlaw.rutgers.edu/collections/gdoc/ |
| Congressional Hearings |
(89th Congress - present, select hearings before 89th) Hein: Selected hearings from the late 19th century forward http://heinonline.org/HOL/Index?index=alpha/1_cbhear&collection=congrec Proquest Congressional (1894-Present): http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/indexes/congcomp Rutgers School of Law-Camden: Selected documents 1970's to present http://njlaw.rutgers.edu/collections/gdoc/ |
| Congressional Debates |
Congressional Record (X 1.1 ) Rows 2/99-104 Westlaw: Congressional Record 99th Congress to current (CR) Hein: Congressional Record 1980-current; Annals of Congress (1789-1824), Register of Debates (1824-1837), and Congressional Globe (1833-1873) http://heinonline.org/HOL/Index?collection=congrec&set_as_cursor=clear |
| Presidential signing statements or veto messages | Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (AE 2.109) Row 2/76 GPO (1993- present): http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=CPD |
| Miscellaneous | The Hathi Trust http://www.hathitrust.org/ has many Congressional Documents (hearings, committee prints, House and Senate documents, etc.) in .pdf format |
In most cases it is necessary to compile a legislative history from scratch by locating all of the relevant documents listed above. But for some major legislative acts there may exist published legislative histories that bring together all of the relevant documents and may also contain added commentary and analysis by the author(s). Many of these compiled legislative histories are published by the staff of congressional committees (usually as Committee Prints) or the Congressional Research Service. Legislative histories are also published by executive agencies or by legal scholars as law review articles. Checking for the existence of a compiled legislative history can save the researcher a great deal of time and effort.
There are two major indexes for finding compiled legislative histories:
Johnson, Nancy P., Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein & Co., 2012. [DOCREF- KF 42.2 .S68 2012]
This work covers laws passed from the 1st through the 110th Congress.
Reams, Bernard D., Federal Legislative Histories: An Annotated Bibliography and Index to Officially Published Sources. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. [DOCREF KF 42.2 1994]
This work is limited to legislative histories published by official government sources (Committee Prints or works by executive agencies). It covers laws passed from the 1st through 101st Congress. Though the scope is narrower than the Nancy Johnson work it contains some histories not covered in the Johnson index.
The Law Librarians' Society of Washington, DC maintains a listing of compiled legislative histories available online at http://www.llsdc.org/legislative-histories-laws-on-the-internet-free-sources.
HeinOnline includes the full text of many compiled legislative histories through its US Federal Legislative History Library, available at http://heinonline.org/HOL/Index?collection=leghis&set_as_cursor=clear
Compiled legislative histories are also available through Lexis and Westlaw. Westlaw features the Arnold & Porter legislative history database that contains the full text of legislative documents for about two dozen major laws. Additionally, Westlaw also has three practice specific legislative databases for immigration law, securities & blue sky law and taxation. The CIS Congressional Universe is a subscription database available from Lexis that provides full legislative histories with hyperlinks to all of the associated documents for legislation from 1970 to the present. It is not available through the basic Lexis account and Rutgers does not have a subscription to this database.