Legislative and Statutory Module


Content:

This module contains materials issued by the Legislative branch of the U.S. government. These materials include:

I. Congress

The United States Congress is bicameral – divided into two separate chambers. The first Chamber is the Senate. It is composed of two Senators from each state. The second Chamber is the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives is limited to 435 members. The number of Representatives from a state is determined by that state’s population. The number of Representatives is reconfigured after the Census at the beginning of each decade.


A. Member Profiles

Profiles provide the researcher with personal and professional background information for members of Congress.

· To locate a congressional profile:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Congressional Member Profile Information
SEARCH: name (DeWine)

· To locate a group of Congressional members by common characteristics:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Congressional Member Profile Information
SEARCH: party (democrat) and military-service (army)


B. Bills

Proposed legislation, commonly referred to as a "bill", is introduced in either the House or the Senate. During the course of a two-year Congressional Session, each bill is assigned a number from the body of Congress in which it was introduced, either House or Senate. A letter indicating in which chamber it was introduced precedes this sequential number.

For example, the "S" in S. 652 indicates that the bill was introduced in the Senate and that it was the 652nd bill introduced in that session of Congress. A bill introduced to the House is labeled the letters "H.R." H.R. 218 is the 218th bill introduced in the House of Representatives during that session of Congress.

A bill becomes a law, or statute, after passing through several stages of consideration. First, committees in the House and/or Senate consider the proposed legislation. Both houses debate the bill and then Congress votes on it. The enrolled version of the bill is the final version of the bill as affirmed by Congress.

If Congress affirms the bill it will be sent to the President for signing and if it is signed, the bill becomes law. If, however, it is vetoed by the President, Congress may still pass the bill into law with a 2/3-majority vote. The bill also becomes law without the President’s signature if the President does nothing with it for 10 days.

· To locate a bill by its number:
SOURCE: Get a document / by citation
SEARCH: 104 S 652

· To locate a bill by subject matter:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Congressional Full-Text Bills – Current Congress
SEARCH: email or e mail or electronic mail /15 advertis! or spam!

· To locate bills sponsored by a particular member of Congress:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Congressional Full-Text Bills – Current Congress
SEARCH: sponsor (mccain)


C. Bill Tracking Reports

Bill tracking reports are diaries of the bill. They allow the researcher to track the complicated path from the bill’s introduction through the hearing process, to mark up, to floor vote, to signature by the President.

· To locate a bill tracking report by its number:
SOURCE: Get a document / by citation
SEARCH: 107 bill tracking hr 718

·To locate a bill tracking by the bill title:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Bill Tracking – Historical / Congressional Bill Tracking Reports – 104th Congress Archived
SEARCH: bill-title (child gun safety act of 2001)


D. Committee Reports

Committees in the House of Representative and the Senate issue reports after they consider legislation. A report details the bill's progress in the committee, including how the bill was amended, amendments that were adopted or rejected, the estimated cost of programs proposed in the legislation, and the opinions of the minority or majority.

· To locate committee reports regarding the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Committee Reports
SEARCH: human cloning prohibition act of 2001


E. Committee Prints

Committee Prints are research documents prepared by committee staff, the Congressional Research Service, or outside consultants. They are used by members of Congress as background information for the consideration of complex national policy issues.

Prints encompass a variety of information needs, including: studies on topics of public interest, analysis of legislation, reports on committee activities, or investigative reports that supplement information gathered at hearings.

Committee Prints are valuable to anyone interested in the business of policy-making both as an in depth look into current issues and a historical record of the contemporary perception of those issues.

· To locate committee prints regarding the topic of US antidumping policy:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Committee Prints
SEARCH: u.s. /10 antidumping or anti-dumping /10 policy


F. House and Senate Documents

House and Senate documents are executive communications from the President to Congress. Most frequently, these documents include comments on legislative matters, international affairs or economic reports.

House and Senate documents are enable the researcher to monitor the direction of the Executive Branch, study its opinion on the most controversial issues, and review its interactions with the Legislative Branch.

· To locate House and Senate Documents regarding Export Administration Act of 1979:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / House and Senate Documents
SEARCH: export administration act of 1979


G. Hearing Transcripts and Testimonies

Hearing transcripts cover prepared written statements or actual testimony of witnesses that appear at hearings before the Congressional committees or general sessions of Congress.

· To locate congressional testimony regarding the topic of drug-trafficking in Latin America:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Committee Hearing Transcripts / FDCH Political Transcripts + Federal News Service + National Narrowcast Network Transcripts
SEARCH: drug /5 traffick! /20 latin america!

· To locate transcripts providing the testimony (oral or written, prepared) of a particular individual:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Committee Hearing Transcripts / FDCH Political Transcripts + Federal News Service + National Narrowcast Network Transcripts
SEARCH: headline (john /2 mccain) or speaker (john /2 mccain) or witnesses (john /2 mccain) or testimony-by (john /2 mccain)


H. Congressional Record

The Congressional Record contains the daily, verbatim, official report of the debates and proceedings before Congress. Therefore, the Congressional Record is a great source to use to determine Congress’ intentions regarding a particular bill.

· To locate documents in the Congressional Record for debate on the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Congressional Record, All Congresses Combined
SEARCH: human cloning prohibition act

· To locate a document in the Congressional Record by its citation:
SOURCE: Get a Document / By Citation
SEARCH: 143 Cong Rec S 7284


I. Legislative Histories

1. Congressional Information Service Index

The CIS/Index provides abstracts of Congressional committee hearings, prints, reports and documents that are published by some 300 active House, Senate, and Joint committees and subcommittees. Each of these abstracts has a CIS-specific reference number that can be used for researching these documents within the CIS/Index source.

In addition, the CIS/Index source contains prepared legislative histories of all Public Laws enacted since 1970, with the exception that purely technical and ceremonial laws have been omitted. The histories provide a summary of the Public Law along with references to all Congressional publications that are part of the law's history.

· To locate a legislative history of an Act of Congress by the title of the Act:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Legislative Histories / US – CIS Index
SEARCH: doc-type (legislative history) and title (foreign service act of 1980)

· To locate a legislative history of and Act of Congress when you have the Public Law number:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Legislative Histories / US – CIS Index
SEARCH: doc-type (legislative history) and public law (96-465)

· To locate an abstract of a document that is part of the legislative history of an Act of Congress:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Legislative Histories / US – CIS Index
SEARCH: doc-type (report) and cis-no (S383-14)

2. CIS Historical Index

The CIS Historical Index (Congressional Masterfile 1) provides access to bibliographic records for six major bodies of congressional documents:

-U.S. Serial Set, including Reported Bill Numbers (1789-1969)
-Senate Executive Documents and Reports (1817-1969)
-U.S. Congressional Committee Hearings (1833-1969)
-Unpublished U.S. Senate Committee Hearings (1823-1972)
-Unpublished U.S. House Committee Hearings (1833-1958)
-U.S. Congressional Committee Prints (1830-1969)

· To locate bibliographic references to documents related to a particular Act of Congress prior to 1970:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / Legislative Histories / CIS/Historical Index
SEARCH: title (foreign service act of 1946)


J. Public Laws and Statutes at Large

Public laws are the first official publication of the statute. When the bill becomes law it receives a new number; on the federal level this is called a public law number. The public law number consists of the number of the session of Congress in which the bill passed, followed by a number that represents the order in which it passed. For example, Public Law 104-99 represents the 99th law passed by the 104th session of Congress. (Each Congressional Session lasts for two years. In this example the 104th Congress was in session from 1995 to 1996; 1997 to 1998 was the period of the105th Congress.) The “Public Laws” source on LexisNexis covers all public laws back to 100th Congress, second session (1988). This source provides the full text of each law in electronic format.

· To locate a public law by subject matter:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / USCS – Public Laws
SEARCH: religi! /5 free! and international

· To locate a public law by its popular name:
SOURCE: Legislation & Politics / U.S. Congress / USCS – Public Laws
SEARCH: short-title (national missile defense act of 1999)

Statutes at Large is the next official publication of all public laws and treaties. Statutes at Large contains public laws and treaties as they appear in the official publication of the United States Congress. Statutes at Large have binding legal effect, however are not yet codified. The “Statutes at Large” source on LexisNexis covers all Public Laws and Treaties as they appeared in the official publication of the United States Congress, back to 1776. This source provides abstracts of each Public Law and Treaty, with links to the full text of the document in PDF format. Each document also contains a complete list of all amending laws.

· To locate a public law (pre-1988) by its number:
SOURCE: Federal Legal – U.S. / United States Statutes at Large
SEARCH: cite (92 pl 92)

· To locate a public law (pre-1988) by its popular name:
SOURCE: Federal Legal – U.S. / United States Statutes at Large
SEARCH: short-title(foreign service act of 1946)


K. Statutes

1. Federal Level

The laws created by the legislature are referred to interchangeably as statutes, laws, or the Code. The Constitution grants the legislature broad powers to create rules to govern society. Statutes usually take precedence over common law.

After the passage the law becomes a statute and is the law governing conduct within its scope. It is then codified, that is, compiled in a book or books called a code. A code a compilation of statutes (or administrative regulations) arranged by subject matter or topics [1]. Statutory codes rearrange statutes according to subject matter so that, for example, all labor laws are grouped together regardless of the dates on which the individual labor statutes were passed. An example of a federal labor statute is the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA), which establishes a national policy regarding workplace safety.

The citation format for a statute depends largely on the legislature in which it was passed. On the federal level, it always follows the same pattern:

Title Name of the Code Section Section
29 U.S.C. 654
(Labor) (United States Code) (Duties of employers and employees)


In this example, when Congress passed the law governing the duties of employers and employees under OSHA it was codified in Title 29, section 654 of the U.S. Code. The proper citation for this is:

29 U.S.C. 654

"U.S.C." stands for the United States Code, which is the official publication of the United States Code. The U.S. Code is also published in two commercial versions, United States Code Service ("U.S.C.S."), published by Lexis Law Publishing, formerly Lawyer’s Cooperative Publishing, and United States Code Annotated ("U.S.C.A."), published by West Publishing Company.[2] These two private publications provide additional annotations to explain the meaning of the law. The citation formats for the OSHA statute mentioned above, if you are using the private annotations are, respectively:

29 U.S.C.S. 654
29 U.S.C.A. 654

2. Archived Statutes

With the passage of legislation each year, the US Code is constantly changing. Because many incidents occur after a code section has been affected by legislation. It may be necessary to look at how the language changed.

· To locate a where a public law has been codified in the United States Code
SOURCE: Federal Legal- US / United States Code Service Materials / USCS Archive
SEARCH: authority (104-104)

3. State Level

The process for passage and codification of laws is similar on both the state and federal levels. Citation formats differ from state to state. Generally, though, there will always be a title, an abbreviation of the state code, and section. For example, the Oregon State dog bite statute is codified at:

  48 O.R.S. 609.097  
  or  
     
Title Name of the Code Section
48 O.R.S. 609.097
(Animals) (Oregon Revised Statutes) (Exception to dog as public nuisance)


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[1] Session laws collect statutes chronologically from enactment. Session laws are reported in the series Statutes at Large (abbreviated as "Stat.").

[2] Session laws and statutory codes also exist at the state level, but states vary in organization and publishing of these materials.