Step-by-Step Research about a Federal Law
Begin Step-by-Step Research -- Research Tips
- Identify the Public Law number
- Locate and read overviews of the bill's history
- Congressional Quarterly Almanac
- U.S. Code Congressional & Administrative News - Retrieve a compiled legislative history list of bills, hearings, reports, debate, etc.
- CIS Index: Legislative Histories - Retrieve the Bill Tracking Report
- ProQuest Congressional - Retrieve the brief "Guide to Legislative History" list of bills, reports and debate
- U.S. Statutes at Large - Retrieve the list of reports and documents by bill number(s)
- CIS U.S. Serial Set Index, Part XIII, Index by Reported Bill Numbers, 1817-1969 - Retrieve the list of reports, documents, and hearings by subject
- ProQuest Congressional, Historical Indexes, 1789-1969
- CIS U.S. Congressional Committee Hearings Index, 1833-1969 - Retrieve articles from journals & newspapers
- Search for information from organizations concerned with the issue
- Gale Directory Library - Check other resources for information
- Thomas
- GPO Access
- Other sites
Check other resources for information
Two great Web resources for information about Congress are:
Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet (Library of Congress) provides extensive legislative information, including some information back to 1973.
Legislative Branch Resources on GPO Access includes the text of bills, hearings, etc. back to 1993 and History of Bills back to 1983.
Other Sites for Tracking Congress & Legislation
See also the other resources about government spending
- GovTrack This link opens in a new window"has information on all bills going back to 1993 and follows the status of current pending legislation as it goes through the law-making process."
- LegiStorm This link opens in a new window"helps bring transparency to the U.S. Congress by disseminating public documents and non-partisan information over the web"
- OpenCongress This link opens in a new window"OpenCongress allows anyone to follow legislation in Congress, from bill introduction to floor vote. Learn more about issues you care about and connect with others who share similar views."
- Taxpayers for Common Sense"an independent and non-partisan voice for taxpayers working to increase transparency and expose and eliminate wasteful and corrupt subsidies, earmarks, and corporate welfare"
- WashingtonWatch"starts with government predictions about the costs or savings from proposed changes to government spending, taxation, and regulation. We take these predictions and calculate their “net present value.” That is the value today of changes to future spending, taxes, or regulation."
- Subsidyscope (Pew Charitable Trusts) (Archived 2012 Project) This link opens in a new window"Subsidyscope presented data and analysis on federal spending and subsidies across nine broad economic sectors, including agriculture; education; energy; health; housing; national defense; natural resources and environment; science, space, and technology; and transportation. Subsidyscope made this information more accessible to policy makers and the public by aggregating information from multiple government data sources, creating searchable data sets, and providing sector-specific analyses."
- Public Disclosure (U.S. Senate) This link opens in a new window- United States Senate Financial Disclosures (eFD)
- Senate Gift Rule Database
- Lobbying Disclosure Act Databases
- Post Employment Lobbying Restrictions - MapLight -- revealing money's influence on politics This link opens in a new window"a nonpartisan research organization that reveals money’s influence on politics in the U.S. Congress and in the California and Wisconsin state legislatures. We provide journalists and citizens with transparency tools that connect data on campaign contributions, politicians, legislative votes, industries, companies, and more to show patterns of influence never before possible to see. These tools allow users to gain unique insights into how campaign contributions affect policy so they can draw their own conclusions about how money influences our political system."
- Legislative Explorer (1973+) This link opens in a new window- "Compare the bills and resolutions introduced by Senators and Representatives and follow their progress from the beginning to the end of a two year Congress."
- "Filter by topic, type of legislation, chamber, party, member, or even search for a specific bill."