LibGuides: Federal Legislative History Research: Precompiled Legislative Histories

What is a Precompiled Legislative History?

What do you do if you want to pull together everything—all the bill drafts, floor debates, hearings, reports, committee prints, etc.—related to a specific public law? Reach for the compiled legislative history! There are several sources for precompiled legislative histories, available electronically or in print. For now, we’re just going to focus on precompiled histories available through ProQuest and HeinOnline. Keep in mind that other sources exist (Westlaw and Lexis both have some, for example), and contact a reference librarian if you need help locating additional sources for precompiled legislative histories.

ProQuest Legislative Insight This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Legislative Insight provides users with compiled federal legislative histories made up of digital, full text publications created by Congress during the process leading up to the enactment of U.S. Public Laws. Each legislative history includes the full text of the public law itself, all versions of related bills, law-specific Congressional Record excerpts, committee hearings, public comments, reports, and prints. The legislative histories also include presidential signing statements, Congressional Research Service reports, and miscellaneous congressional publications that provide background material to aid in the understanding of issues related to the making of the law. Legislative Insight includes documents related to the passage of particular public laws, so hearings, reports, bills that are not part of the pre-compiled legislative histories are not included in this database. For those other materials, please use ProQuest Congressional.
U.S. Federal Legislative History Library (HeinOnline) This link opens in a new window
This HeinOnline collection includes over 2,400 compiled federal legislative histories from a variety of sources, including the GPO, Arnold and Porter, Covington and Burling, and Kirkland and Ellis. This collection uses basic and advanced search tools throughout the site, as well as the index from Nancy Johnsons Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories, which includes citations to law review articles relevant to specific legislative histories. Users can also browse by publication, title, author, date, or subject. The U.S. Federal Legislative History Library is updated periodically.