Guides: Legislative History Research Guide: Compiled Legislative Histories

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Overview

A key point to remember for purposes of legislative history research is that you should not reinvent the wheel! The legislative history of a particular law or area of law is often already compiled and published. These sources may be collections of reprinted documents, lists of citations, or just a narrative history that cites the important sources.

Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories

ProQuest Legislative Insight
More than 18,000 compiled federal legislative histories covering laws from 1929 to the present. (Includes only select bills that have passed.) A video tutorial on using ProQuest Legislative Insight is available here.
ProQuest Congressional
This database has compiled legislative histories for laws from 1969. The histories includes listings of all documents associated with the law, arranged by type of document. Most compiled legislative histories link to the full text of the document. For best results, enter the Public Law number (or bill number, or Statutes at Large citation) to your law on the Search by Number page, then narrow to Legislative History on the left. A video tutorial on using ProQuest Congressional is available here.
United States Code Congressional and Administrative News (USCCAN)
Contains public laws, legislative history, proclamations, executive messages and orders, administrative regulations, lists of committees, indexes & tables, for each session of Congress.
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On Westlaw: Choose Proposed & Enacted Legislation, then under Tools (right) select Legislative History, then under "Federal" select U.S. Code and Congressional & Administrative News
Legislative Histories of Selected U.S. Laws on the Internet: Free Sources
A directory of links to free compiled legislative histories for numerous federal laws. LLSDC also maintains a list of compiled legislative histories in commercial sources.
Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories (HeinOnline)
The Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories Database is derived from the looseleaf publication Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories: A Bibliography of Government Documents, Periodical Articles, and Books by Nancy P. Johnson.
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All compilations for major laws are included in the database with the following exceptions: appropriations measures; ceremonial matters; laws that extend the life of an agency or authority; and laws that affect small numbers of persons or specific regions of the country. The sources for these compilations include congressional documents, legal periodicals, treatises and looseleaf services
U.S. Federal Legislative History Library (HeinOnline)
Includes comprehensive federal legislative histories published by the U.S. GPO and private publishers, as well as a finding aid based on Nancy Johnson's award-winning work, Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories (linked directly above). A guide to HeinOnline's Federal Legislative History Library is available here.
Arnold & Porter Legislative Histories
Very selective compilation of legislative histories available on Westlaw.
GAO Federal Legislative Histories
Select Proposed & Enacted Legislation, then Tools & Resources for Legislative History, then GAO Federal Legislative Histories
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Legislative histories for most U.S. Public Laws enacted from 1915 to 1995, as originally compiled by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. This set of valuable legislative histories was fairly recently acquired by Westlaw and has a rolling release over four years, and currently contains legislative histories from 1924 to 1995.
CIS (Congressional Information Service)/Index
The CIS/Index provides abstracts of Congressional committee hearings, prints, reports and documents, as well as CIS prepared legislative histories of all Public Laws enacted since 1970.
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May not contain the full text of all referenced documents, but you can take the citations from here to another database, like ProQuest Congressional, to find the full text.
Congress.gov
Congress.gov is the legislative documents database from the Library of Congress, and it is particularly useful if you seek recent materials.
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You can search or browse to the "Bill Summary & Status" for each bill or law. Click on "Text of Legislation" to see the full text of all versions of the bill," and on "All Congressional Actions" to see its chronological history, with links to full text of the documents produced (no hearings). Dates of coverage for different types of legislative documents varies.

Tax Legislative Histories

Though you can use any of the sources on this page to research the legislative histories of tax laws, there are a few sources dedicated to tax-related legislative histories.

IRC Legislative History
Legislative History documents for particular IRC sections. Approximately 1,500 IRC sections are included.
Tax Legislative Histories, Combined

Legislative History Research Guide

Contents

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Overview

Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories

Tax Legislative Histories