When researching bills that passed or were originated before about 1995, it may be necessary to put aside online resources and crack a few books! Here is some information on where to find information on historic bills.
The Congressional Record and its predecessors contain a record of the proceedings of Congress. These are not verbatim transcripts, as members are allowed to edit their remarks and insert remarks not actually spoken.
Available in the Valley Library:
Congressional Record, 1873 - 1985 -- J11 .R5
The Congressional Globe, 1834 - 1873 -- J11 .G5
Register of Debates, 1824 - 1838 -- Microfilm J11 .D5
The Serial Set - Congressional Documents and Committee Reports, pre-1979
The United States Congressional Serial Set is a compilation of Congressional Reports and Documents. It does not include hearings, debates and committee prints. OSU has Serial Set volumes through the 96th Congress (1979).
Finding Aids:
The CIS U.S. Serial Set Index covers 1789 - 1969 - KF49 .C61 1975
Numerical Lists and Schedule of Volumes of the Documents and Reports of CongressZ1223 .A15 --This source cross references Document and Report numbers with Serial Set numbers.
The Serial Set is located on the 3rd floor of the Valley Library, in locked shelves. Access is provided through the OSU Archives desk located on the 3rd floor during their regular operating hours. Researchers are invited to make an appointment.
Hearings
OSU has hearings from about 1980 - 1999 on microfiche. We also have a collection of selected pre-1980 hearings. Most are not cataloged, but are kept in the Documents stacks arranged by committee name and title. A few have been added to the online catalog, so please check there as well.
Finding Aids:
CIS US Congressional Committee Hearings Index covers 1953-1969. KF40 .C56 1981
Hearings card file (in the Docs shelf list) indexes pre 1953- hearings (requires staff assistance; please contact the Government Information librarian if you wish to access this resource).
Committee Prints
Pre-1980 Prints: Many committee prints are not widely distributed and are not made available to libraries. OSU has a collection of selected pre-1980 prints that are kept in the Documents stacks arranged by committee name and title. A very few have been cataloged, so please check the online catalog as well.
1980-1999: OSU has some prints for these years on microfiche. Check the catalog for availability.
Finding Aids:
Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications pre-1976 - Z1223 .A14
For years previous to 1987, text of bills may be included in the Congressional Record or in Senate and House reports, prints and hearings. (See under Debates for information on accessing Congressional Record.)
Statutes at Large
Permanent collection of all laws and resolutions enacted during each session of Congress.
FDsys: vol.65 (1951) to vol. 94 (1980). Web-based access to official, digitally-signed versions in browsable and searchable PDFs. Vol.95-115 will be added during the coming weeks. Look under Additional Government Publicationson FDsys.
Microfilm:
KF50 .U5 vol. 1-27
In print:
KF50 .U5 vol. 28-49; vol. 50-present
Congressional Conversion Chart
Often ignored, but very useful, is a way to translate dates to Congressional session. If you're looking for a bill passed in February of 1992, and you only have the date, which Congress and session was it? Where can you find out so that you can do a better search?
To know where to start searching for information about a bill or law, it can be important to know what kind of information you want, and where the bill is in the process.
Process of Bill to Law
Bill drafted (by members of Congress, the Administration, or others)
Introduction in House (H.R. ####) or Senate (S.###); sent to committee, or desk, or calendar
Committee action/inaction | Hearings/Markup
Vote to report bill | writing report
Floor Activity / (House may refer to Rules Committee) / Debate / Votes
Sent to other chamber to go through same process
Conference: a joint committee resolving differences between House and Senate bills (if necessary) / Votes
President: signs or vetoes
Written into law: printed, codified
Regulations written to instruct us how to follow the new law
This process is seldom smooth or direct. Bills may be sent back to committee or to a different committee for more work, be amended, “die” through inaction, be pulled by the sponsor, be re-introduced in a future session with minor or major changes and a new name, etc. It is important to rethink this process with each bill you research, and keep in mind the kinds of political or procedural maneuvering that can happen at any point.
Congressional information is found in a variety of places, both online and in the library. Here is information for locating debates, votes, Congressional documents and committee reports, hearings, committee prints, bills, public and private laws, Statutes at Large, and the United States Code with an explanation of each. Click below on Read More for further information.
The Congressional Record and its predecessors contain a record of the proceedings of Congress. These are not verbatim transcripts, as members are allowed to edit their remarks and insert remarks not actually spoken.
THOMAS: Looking at votes through THOMAS is easy if you know the date the vote occurred or you know the vote or bill number. There is no subject access to votes and the description of each vote is very brief.
Senate recorded floor votes from the 101st Congress (1989-90),
House recorded floor votes from the second session of the 101st Congress (1990).
Congressional Record : The official source of information on recorded floor votes. Votes are printed in the daily Record as they occur on the floor. The votes provide an alphabetical listing of members under “yea,” “nay,” and “not voting” categories and show the overall tally for each category. However, votes are not identified by party or by state. The Daily Digest section that is printed at the end of each Record shows how many roll call votes were taken that day and show on what page in the Record the votes can be found. The Congressional Record Index provides subject access to the votes (under “Votes in Senate” and “Votes in House.”)
CQ Weekly (online from 1998; before 1998, in print as Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, JK1 .C2) compiles voting charts of all votes taken in the Senate and House each week. The charts are arranged chronologically by Congressional Record vote number and alphabetically by state. Members’ names are listed in the left-hand column and vote numbers are shown at the top of the chart. The charts show how each member voted or whether the member was absent or paired on a vote. There are also overall vote tallies and party breakdowns on the vote. Weekly vote charts are compiled annually in two CQ books: the CQ Almanac and Congressional Roll Call, which contain subject indexes to the votes.
Congressional Documents and Committee Reports
Reports - House and Senate Reports are committee reports on proposed legislation. Once a bill is "reported" it can be sent to the floor of the House or Senate for debate or voting.
Documents - House and Senate Documents are publications printed by order of Congress. They include reports of executive branch agencies, special studies done for Congress, and reports of some non-governmental groups.
Location
In the Library:Congressional Reports and Documents (1980 - present) in microfiche (3rd floor):
Senate Reports - Docs Fiche Y 1.1/5:[rept. no.]
House Reports - Docs Fiche Y 1.1/8:[rept. no.]
Senate Documents - Docs Fiche Y 1.1/3:[doc. no.]
House Documents - Docs Fiche Y 1.1/7:[doc. no.]
Full text Online
FDsys (in the Featured Collections list) 99th Congress (1985-86) to present.
Thomas(in Committee Reports) 104th Congress (1995-96) to present.
Historic Reports and Documents: pre-1980
The Serial Set: The United States Congressional Serial Set (aka the Serial Set) is a compilation of Congressional Reports and Documents.
Does not include hearings, debates and committee prints.
OSU has Serial Set volumes through the 96th Congress (1979), although missing some volumes.
Congressional Reports and Documents published after 1979 are available in microfiche (3rd floor of the Valley Library).
Location: The pre-1980 Serial Set is located on the 3rd floor of the Valley Library, in locked shelves.
Access: ask at the OSU Archives desk, 3rd floor, during their regular operating hours. Researchers are invited to make an appointment.
Finding Aids:
The CIS U.S. Serial Set Index, 1789 - 1969 - KF49 .C61 1975
Numerical Lists and Schedule of Volumes of the Documents and Reports of CongressZ1223 .A15 -- cross references Document and Report numbers with Serial Set numbers.
Hearings
Published committee hearings include transcripts of testimony, question and answer sessions, and any supplementary material inserted into the record. Not all hearings are published. Since congressional committees do not have a statutory requirement to adhere to a mandated printing schedule, the interval between the time a hearing is held and the time it is printed can vary greatly. Since congressional committees do not have a statutory requirement to publish hearings, it is not even certain that a hearing that is held will ever be officially published.
Index for finding published hearings:CIS US congressional committee hearings index. Published in parts. Each part has vols. for Reference bibliograph,; Index by subjects and organizations, and Index by personal names. Call number: KF40 .C56 1981.OSU has volumes for 1953 (83rd Congress) through 1969 (91st Congress)
Location: OSU has hearings from about 1980 - 1999 on microfiche. Hearings from 1999 - present are collected in paper and many are online. Check online catalog for availability and format.
Pre-1980 hearings: We have a collection of selected pre-1980 hearings. Most are not cataloged. Location: Documents stacks arranged by committee name and title.
[There is a Hearings card file (in the Docs shelf list) that indexes pre 1953- hearings (requires staff assistance; please contact Government Information Librarian to make arrangements)]
Online sources for hearings:
FDsys (in the Featured Collections list) from 1995-96 (104th congress) - present.
Congressional Committee Prints are publications issued by Congressional Committees that include topics related to their legislative or research activities, as well as other matters such as memorial tributes. The prints are an excellent resource for statistical and historical information, and for legislative analysis. The subjects of the Committee Prints vary greatly due to the different concerns and actions of each committee. Some basic categories of Congressional Committee Prints are: draft reports and bills, directories, statistical materials, investigative reports, historical reports, situational studies, confidential staff reports, hearings, and legislative analyses.
Many committee prints are not widely distributed and are not made available to libraries. OSU has some prints from about 1980 - 1999 on microfiche. Prints from 1999 - present are collected in paper. Check OASIS for availability and format.
Pre-1980 Prints:
Selected pre-1980 prints.
Not cataloged
kept in the Documents stacks (3rd floor) arranged by committee name and title
OSU has House and Senate Bills from 1987 (100th Congress) - 2000 (106th Congress) on microfiche. For previous years, text of bills may be included in the Congressional Record or in Senate and House reports, prints and hearings. Current bills are available online (see below).
Online full text and finding aids:
Thomas: indexing and full text from 1993 (103rd) - present
FDsys: indexing and full text from 1993 (103rd) - present
Public and Private Laws (aka, Slip Laws)
Public and private laws are also known as slip laws. A slip law is an official publication of the law and is competent evidence admissible in all state and Federal courts and tribunals of the United States. Public laws affect society as a whole, while private laws affect an individual, family, or small group.
After the President signs a bill into law, it is assigned a law number, legal statutory citation (public laws only), and prepared for publication as a slip law. Private laws receive their legal statutory citations when they are published in the United States Statutes at Large.
Prior to publication as a slip law, marginal notes and citations are added for each law, as well as a legislative history for public laws only. Until the slip law is published, through the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), the text of the law can be found by accessing the enrolled version of the bill.
Thomas Bill summary and status records, Public laws only, 93rd (1973) through current Congress. The text of Public Laws is available from the 104th Congress (1995) to the present; the text of Enrolled (final) versions of legislation is available from the 101st Congress (1989) to the present. Source: Library of Congress (bill texts), GPO (Public Law texts)
Statutes at Large
This is the permanent, official collection of every public and private law and resolution enacted by Congress.
The most current volumes prepared and published by the Office of the Federal Register (OFR), National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) are v.117-v.121 (2003-2007) covering the 108th-110th Congresses; these are fully searchable.
Digitized versions (at less granularity than the post-2003 volumes) are available for volumes 65-116 (1951-2002) covering the 82nd-107th Congresses. They are in a section of FDsys called Additional Government Publications.
You can fill in the gaps with searchable PDFs of most of the volumes on the website of the Constitution Society,http://www.constitution.org/uslaw/sal/sal.htm. While these are PDFs of the published volumes, they are not regarded as "official."
Microfilm:
KF50 .U5 vol. 1-27 (3rd floor)
Print:
KF50 .U5 vol. 28-49; vol. 50-present (5th floor)
United States Code
The United States Code is the codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. It is divided by broad subjects into 50 titles and published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives. Since 1926, the United States Code has been published every six years. In between editions, annual cumulative supplements are published in order to present the most current information.
An easy way to connect to just the title and section needed is to use the official site from the House of Representatives, http://uscode.house.gov/ . Or use the Legal Information Institute (Cornell University Law School) website for the U.S. Code, http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/ . You can even set up an RSS feed here for titles you commonly access.
The annotated version of the US Code is searchable in the LexisNexis Academic database (http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/research-databases). Go to the US Legal section and choose "Federal Statutes, Codes & Regulations."
Capitol hill building at night illuminated with light, Washington DC.
