New law clerks are often assigned the job of researching the legislative history for a particular state or federal statute. The goal is to look at the documents produced throughout the various stages from bill to public law to interpret the meaning or intent behind various sections. For a federal law it may involve looking at different versions of the bill, testimony in the Congressional Record, hearings or committee reports.
Compiling a legislative history can be a time consuming process that may result in a large bill for the client, so before you start researching, it makes sense to see if someone has already done the work for you. Compilations can be found by searching the online catalogs of area libraries such as the University of Denver’s Westminster Law Library, University of Colorado Law Library, Colorado Supreme Court Law Library, or Denver Public Library. The U.S. Federal Legislative History library of the HeinOnline Database contains digitized compilations that can be searched by popular name, Congress or Public Law number. To access, click on the link above or go through the library's Databases / Indexes section on our website. You will need your DU ID to log on through the proxy server if your are not on campus.
Other databases offer a wealth of compiled legislative history resources. The FED-LH
database on Westlaw contains the GAO's collection of legislative history
documents compiled for Public Laws enacted from 1921 to 1995. (Password required). They also have topical databases for legislative histories in securities, tax and immigration. Be sure to check out the Arnold and Porter database of legislative histories while you are on Westlaw. Arnold and Porter is a large law firm with more than 800 attorneys in nine offices including Denver.Lexis includes many legislative history options as well. Search the directory under Federal Legal - U.S. Legislative History to see if what you are looking for is available. The Department of Justice has digitized and made available to the public some legislative histories that their staff has compiled. Topics vary, but some of the major compilations include the Administrative Procedure Act, the Child Custody & Visitation Act, The Federal Tort Claims Act Amendment and the War Crimes Act.
So what happens if you have looked at these various resources and no one has done a compilation on your particular federal statute? What online resources (free or fee-based) are the most useful? The Westminster Law Library has created an online research guide on Federal Legislative History to assist you with your research. See this article, Researching Federal Legislative History, published in the Colorado Lawyer in 2010, for details on the sources and steps need to compile a legislative history. Investigating older laws may mean that you need to use more print resources since the material may not all be available online. This article, Uncovering Federal Legislative History - Part II, focuses on print resources that can be found at many academic law libraries or larger public libraries.
Written by Patty Wellinger, Reference Services Coordinator
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