For an introduction to statutory research, see our Statutes Research Guide guide. The following is a list of sources for the full text of federal laws:
For some federal communications laws, there are compiled legislative histories available in the Library. These compilations usually include bills, Congressional Record debates, reports and hearings. Examples include:
To find others, try a keyword search in our catalog using terms from the popular title of your act and the phrase "legislative history." (Example: cable and legislative history)
ProQuest Legislative Insight provides an online collection of compiled, searchable legislative histories, including:
For laws not covered by ProQuest Legistlative Insight, we suggest ProQuest Congressional as the single most comprehensive database for federal legislative history research. We recommend using the Advanced Search or -- if you want to search using citations to public laws, bills, or legislative history documents -- using the very precise Search by Number feature.
For more information on how to do legislative history research, read our Legislative History Research Guide or watch our Legislative History Video Tutorial.