Each of our state resources guides links directly to the state's statutes and constitution including Lexis, Westlaw and Bloomberg Law (see links below) and on the free web. State legislatures' websites may provide their statutes, but please note that free web versions of state codes sometimes have currency and accuracy issues, and may not be considered the "official" version.
AALL Online Legal Information Resources links to free online state statutes and provides the official status of the web version.
In some cases, the printed statutes is still the official version. Our state resources guides list the titles for the print codes published (by West and Lexis) for each state.
Before compiling a state legislative history, look at our state resource guides which lists legislative history research guides developed by law librarians who work in that state. Research guides are good starting points as they identify the legislative documents vital to the research. Our guides also provide direct links to a state's session laws found on the state legislature's website, HeinOnline: Session Laws Library and LLMC Digital: Laws (by date).
Lexis Legislative Histories: State (coverage varies) in each state offers the Voting Records on a legislation and Legislative Bill History containing a variety of documents related to bills. Lexis recommends running a free text search initially on the Legislative Bill History database to accommodate the varying names of legislative documents and committees from state to state. A legislative bill history search can also be performed within a specific Practice Area and narrowed by Jurisdiction and/or Sources to locate documents from multi-states for a specific topic.
Westlaw Legislative History: State: Jurisdictions (coverage varies) offers bill analyses, governor messages and the legislature's journals within each state. This database also allows a search across Types of legislative history documents (such as amendment text, fiscal notes, committee reports, governor messages, legislature journals, transcripts, veto messages and votes). The search results can be filtered by states.
In Lexis, full-text bills, advance legislative service, and legislative bill history may be found in Statutes and Legislation. It also offers an Archived Code Search.
In Westlaw, search also state legislative history, statutes annotated - historical, bill tracking, bill tracking historical, and proposed & enacted legislation.
In Bloomberg Law, text of enacted legislation may be found through State Laws & Regulations.
LLMC Digital may contain digitized historical senate and house journals as well as historical state statutes and/or session laws (Online Services > Browse Collections > U.S. States and Territories > State Name > Legislative).
State Legislative Sourcebook (in print, Call Number: Reference Desk JK2495 .S689), though ceased in 2021, is a 50-state guide on legislative information resources. In addition to providing the location of a state's legislative documents, it also includes sources for tracking services, document mailing services and best live person initial contact.
Legiscan.com is a freely available resource where you can find legislation on a topic across all states, or track a particular state bill. An account is not necessary to search current legislation. To search older legislation, a free account must be created.
National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) Research Tools: Legislation Databases and the Bill Information Service includes a 50 state bill tracking database which contains summaries and analysis of bills on a variety of issues. NCSL Research Tools additionally provide to members a Bill Information Service to search all state, Washington D.C. and territories legislation.