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Legislative History
Bridge the GapHeather Casey
April 2, 2012
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What is a legislative history?
The documents that are produced inthe process of enacting legislation.
These documents are used to gain insighton the background and events leading toa statutes enactment
Thus giving insight to the intent behind thestatute
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Why do we care?
Legislative histories help whendetermining the intent of the
Congress at the time a statutewas proposed or enacted.
So?
Courts may look to this intent when astatute is ambiguous on its face.
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A Not-At-All-Confusing Diagram of theLegislative Process
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A Simpler Diagram
This chart was found on the Notre Dame Law Library website at:http://law.nd.edu/library-and-technology/students/legal-research-guides/federal-legislative-history-research
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Legislative Paper Trail
Bills different versions suggest changes as result of
deliberations or compromise
Comm. hearings interested parties makestatements
Comm. prints background research;staffterm paper
Comm. reports analysis of bill andrecommendation
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Legislative Paper Trail (cont.)
Floor debates not generally informativebut can reflect views of key players
Conference reports the compromisesworked out between the differentchambers highly significant
Enrolled act what is sent to theexecutive
Signing statement or veto statement why the executive acted the way she did
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Federal Legislative Materials--Bills
Bills numbered by Congress andby chamber, e.g., H.R. 3055, 94th
Cong. (1976)
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Bills (cont.)
Bills go to committees in both houses, atdifferent times
Bills can go to multiple committees insame house
Committees can receive and amendmultiple bills on same topic
Engrossed bill
official copy of a billthat has passed one chamber
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Committee Papers
Committee prints by committee
Committee hearings can search bywitness or by topic
Committee reports most influential,section-by-section analysis
Serial setcollection of reports and other
documents Conference report compiled by
conference comm. (House and Senate)
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Committee Print
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Committee Hearing
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Committee Report
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Congressional Record
Debates on the House & Senate floors
Sometimes includes material not
actually said on the floor Daily Digest records business of
Congress
Indexed by bill number, speaker, topic
Permanent v. Daily editions pagenumbers do not match
Use GPO/FDSys to access PDFs
Hein Online as well
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Presidential documents
Enrolled act the final version sentto President
Presidential statements WeeklyCompilation of PresidentialDocuments; Papers of the President
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Signing Statement
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Executive Orders &Proclamations
Executive orders
Directions to agencies
Proclamations
Policy announcements
Frequently ceremonial
Sometimes substantive (e.g., state ofemergency or implementation ofagreements)
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Finding Executive Orders &Proclamations
Numbered sequentially in separate series
Series does not start over with each President
E.g., Proclamation No. 6763, Exec. Order No.11,609
Look for them in Federal Register
Codified in Title 3 of C.F.R.
Title 3 is the only volume of C.F.R. that is keptpermanently
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Finding Executive Orders &Proclamations (cont.)
Compilation of PresidentialDocuments Formerly compiled into Public Papers of the President
Since 1989, you are referred back to Federal Register
Formerly Weekly, now Daily
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/wcomp/index.html
Lexis Westlaw
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Presidential Proclamation
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Excerpt from Public Papers of the Presidents of theUnited States (found on FDSys)
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Finding Executive Orders &Proclamations (cont.)
Sometimes reprinted in:
U.S.C.C.A.N. (by year)
U.S. Code, U.S.C.A., U.S.C.S. (byrelated statutory provision)
Statutes at Large (proclamations, but
not executive orders, by year)
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CIS in Paper/Microform
Congressional Information Service 1970-
CIS Indexes/Legislative Histories (inRef.) abstracts of hearings and reports; useful
indexes for finding witnesses, when theytestified, etc.
indexes give microfiche number that youuse to read the original text (generally thisnumber begins with CIS)
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CIS Index in printLists the completelegislative history for agiven actEach type of
document is listed inits own categoryEach document isgiven its own CIS
number to identify itwithin the microfiche
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CIS Listings for Hearings
Hearings are grouped bycommittee so there will beseveral separate sessionsunder one main numberHearings can further be
broken down by thespeakerCIS will list the witnessesthat spoke at each hearing,
in the order they spokeand with their title orassociation, if they haveone
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CIS Online
ProQuest Congressional (formerlyLexis Congressional)
same thing as CIS in paper, but better! can be searched by numerous indexes
provides abstracts in most cases, full-text in some
includes some materials back to 1789 http://law.richmond.edu/library/databases.ht
ml (Look under Federal Resources)
http://law.richmond.edu/library/databases.htmlhttp://law.richmond.edu/library/databases.htmlhttp://law.richmond.edu/library/databases.htmlhttp://law.richmond.edu/library/databases.html8/2/2019 BTG Legislative History
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Compiled legislative histories
Documents collected, thenrepublished or summarized
Often compiled by law firms orexperts
Indexed: Johnson Sources of Compiled
Legislative Histories
Reams Federal Legislative Histories
Hein Online U.S. Federal Legislative
History Library
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FDsys
www.gpo.gov/fdsys
HTML & PDF
Great for retrieval Not-so-good for full-text searching
Bills, hearings, prints, reports,
Congressional Record, Presidentialdocs
Mostly for current materials
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Other Online Sources
Lexis (under Federal Legal)
Westlaw (under U.S. Federal)
Legislative Sourcebook(http://www.llsdc.org/sourcebook/)
Thomas (thomas.loc.gov)
bills
Congressional Record
some committee reports & other info.
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State Legislative Histories
Varies wildly from state to state
Search for research guides specific
to legislative history for your state:Example:
Type Florida Legislative History
Research Guide
***You may need to broaden yoursearch to looking for state legal researchguides
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Links to Sites for State Leg.Hist. Information
Indiana U. Maurer School of Law:
http://www.law.indiana.edu/lawlibrary/
research/guides/statelegislative/index.shtml
Zimmermans Research Guide onLegislative History
http://law.lexisnexis.com/infopro/zimmermans/disp.aspx?z=1962
http://www.law.indiana.edu/lawlibrary/research/guides/statelegislative/index.shtmlhttp://www.law.indiana.edu/lawlibrary/research/guides/statelegislative/index.shtmlhttp://www.law.indiana.edu/lawlibrary/research/guides/statelegislative/index.shtmlhttp://www.law.indiana.edu/lawlibrary/research/guides/statelegislative/index.shtmlhttp://law.lexisnexis.com/infopro/zimmermans/disp.aspx?z=1962http://law.lexisnexis.com/infopro/zimmermans/disp.aspx?z=1962http://law.lexisnexis.com/infopro/zimmermans/disp.aspx?z=1962http://law.lexisnexis.com/infopro/zimmermans/disp.aspx?z=1962http://law.lexisnexis.com/infopro/zimmermans/disp.aspx?z=1962http://law.lexisnexis.com/infopro/zimmermans/disp.aspx?z=1962http://www.law.indiana.edu/lawlibrary/research/guides/statelegislative/index.shtmlhttp://www.law.indiana.edu/lawlibrary/research/guides/statelegislative/index.shtmlhttp://www.law.indiana.edu/lawlibrary/research/guides/statelegislative/index.shtmlhttp://www.law.indiana.edu/lawlibrary/research/guides/statelegislative/index.shtml8/2/2019 BTG Legislative History
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In Print
State Legislative Sourcebook
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Virginia Legislative History
Much less to work with
Bills (look for changes in language)
House & Senate documents (may betied to particular legislation)
Bill files (generally closed except by
patrons permission) http://leg1.state.va.us
Legislative Studies
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Virginia Legislative HistoryContinued
Richmond Sunlight independentwebsite that tracks legislation like
the LIS but also allows for publiccomment www.richmondsunlight.com
Senate and House Journals available in print at our library,Library of Virginia
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And finally.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fZi4JxbTwPo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fZi4JxbTwPohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fZi4JxbTwPohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fZi4JxbTwPohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fZi4JxbTwPo