Guides: US Legislative Materials & Histories: Major Electronic Resources

About

There are several Internet resources that provide access to congressional and other Government information.

Those listed on this page are reliable and frequently updated.

Major Electronic Resources

United States Government Information (U-M Research Guide)
This research guide by the University of Michigan Library provides primary source information, documents, reports or publications produced by the legislative, executive and judicial branches of US federal government.
GovInfo: Government Publications
A service of the United States Government Publishing Office, GovInfo provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal government. Includes official versions of the United States Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, and other federal primary law.
ProQuest Congressional
Full-text Congressional information, including bills, committee reports, hearings, public laws, floor debates, congressional member profiles, the Congressional Record, CRS Reports, and news from the National Journal and Congress Daily.
Congress.gov
Official website of Congress. Contains Congressional publications and records including bill and laws, sponsors, hearings, committee records etc.
CQ Press Congress Collection
A data-rich research and reference tool that provides historical analysis of members of Congress, their legislative voting behavior, interest groups, and their interactions in crafting public policy.

Lexis+ and Westlaw

These commercial database services provide access to a variety of congressional materials, including bill texts, hearings, and debates. The Law Library cannot provide access to these databases to users outside the Michigan Law community.

Lexis+

Lexis provides a searchable database of legislative history materials under "Statutes and Legislation" (under the content type tab).

Documents include:

Committee prints and reports
Congressional Documents (1777-present)
Congressional Hearings (1824-present)
Congressional Research Service Reports (CRS)
Bill Histories
House and Senate Voting Records

Lexis also has some databases that contain legislative histories for specific acts and on specific topics, such as tax.

Statutes & Legislation (Lexis+)

Westlaw

Westlaw provides access to a number of legislative history documents under Legislative History in the "Specialty areas" of the Content types menu.

Documents include:

Congressional Record
U.S. Code & Administrative News
Congressional Testimony
U.S. GAO Legislative Histories
U.S. Political Transcripts (from news conferences, press briefings of committee hearings)
Committee Reports

When viewing a statute within Westlaw, you can also look under the History tab at the top of the document to check whether any legislative history materials are available that relate to a particular statute.

Westlaw also has some databases that contain legislative histories for specific acts and also has databases providing non-current legislative history.

Legislative History (Westlaw)

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