A legislative history consists of the history of actions taken and the documents generated in the course of creating a piece of legislation. These include committee reports, committee hearings, floor debates, floor votes, etc. A legislative history is used for discovering the legislative intent of a particular law. See the video on the legislative process.
START HERE: Complete Legislative Histories, have already been compiled for most laws passed since 1969, saving you the trouble. Go to ProQuest Legislative Insight.
A compiled legislative history usually links to the full text of:
• the public Law
• texts of all the separate bills included in the legislation and the bill tracking report
• debates
• reports
• hearings and commitee prints
• "miscellaneous publications"
Alternative to ProQuest Legislative Insight include:
-- the U.S. Federal Legislative History Library collection on HeinOnline
-- Congressional Bills, at the Government Printing Office
-- Search Bill Summary & Status, at THOMAS.gov (Library of Congress)
--Congress.gov.
If you can't find an already-compiled legislative history for your law, then you will have to create one from 'scratch'. Begin here, at Congressional Action.
If your law is older than approximately the mid-1980's, then you will probably have to use print resources to find the legislative history. In that case, start here at Historical Documents.
