Legislative History Research Florida Coastal School of Law Library

Why do we need to research legislative histories? To decipher what the legislature intended when it enacted the law.

Federal Legislative Histories

What documents make up a legislative history? (in order of their importance) 1. Committee Reports 2. Floor Debates 3. Committee Hearings 4. Bill Text & Amendments 5. Committee Prints 6. House & Senate Documents 7. Presidential Statements

Federal Legislative Histories Step 1Step 1: Find the following information for the legislation in question:  Public law number (or United States Statutes at Large chapter number for legislation enacted prior to 1957),  Date of enactment, and  Number of the House or Senate bill that was enacted. These things can be found in the United States Code (U.S.C.), United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.), or the United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.). The U.S.C.A. is the most helpful of the three because it includes citations to the United States Code Congressional and Administrative News (U.S.C.C.A.N.). Look at the historical references that appear immediately after the text of the statute. You will see the original and amending public law numbers and the dates they were approved, and citations to the Statutes at Large.

Federal Legislative Histories Step 2Step 2: Check the U.S.C.C.A.N. for references to legislative history documents.  U.S.C.C.A.N. reprints selected legislative history (for legislation enacted since 1941) and provides the bill number, date of enactment, and a list of all committee reports for all laws passed by Congress.  The spines of the volumes should say “Laws” or “Legislative History.”

Federal Legislative Histories Step 3Step 3: Use these resources to find particular documents: 1) CIS Serial Set Index Microfiche Library ( ) 2) U.S. Congress Serial Set ( )  From 1817 forward, has all committee reports. 3) Lexis-Nexis Congressional (available through the FCSL Library “Research Resources” page): House and Senate documents from 1995 onward, and of committee reports from Also provides access to the Congressional Information Service Index from 1970, Congressional Indexes , the Congressional Record from 1985, the United States Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, the Federal Register from 1980, The Hill and Roll Call.

Federal Legislative Histories Additional Resources for Documents: GPO Access   PDF and text docs; 1993 forward, Congressional Reports from 1993 forward, Congressional Record from 1994 forward, select Committee publications Thomas Legislative Information on the Internet   Bill summaries/status back to 1973, bill texts and Congress Record 1989 forward, Congressional reports from 1995 forward Lexis Westlaw

Federal Legislative Histories Example: What was the legislative intent of the U.S. Congress when it changed the national minimum drinking age to 21?  First, find the statute in question in one of the annotated statute sets (USCA or USCS).  Second, look for the legislative history notes. Look up the Statutes at Large or the USCCAN citation, whichever is available.  Figure out where to find the documents cited to in the Statutes at Large or USCCAN.

Results House Report No (Comm. On Public Works and Transportation)  Link to through Westlaw Congressional Record, Vol. 130 (1984)  At FCSL on microfiche Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Vol. 20, No. 29 (1984): July 17, Presidential Statement  Inter-library loan (FCSL has 1993 forward only)

Florida Legislative Histories

Find the bill number of the legislation in question. Go to the Senate website and do a search for the bill. (available for bills from 1998 forward) A committee assigned the task of exploring a particular bill may have written a report on the bill. Committee reports or staff analyses, which summarize the intent of the bill, are available in microfiche from To access staff analyses for legislation from 1998 forward, go to the Florida Senate site and there will be a link to these reports on the page where the bill is found. These reports are typically only a few pages long. To obtain a copy of a staff analysis prior to 1987, contact the Florida State Archives at: (850)

Florida Legislative Histories On Westlaw:  Use the FL-LH database to search for bill analyses and House and Senate journals, from the 1998 Regular Session through the 2003 Special Session D.

Florida Legislative Histories Pre-1998 Documents:  Committee hearings are not published. If you want a copy of a hearing, blank tape(s) must be sent to the State Archives.  Florida Information Associates in Tallahassee (850) may be contacted for assistance with researching legislative history.  The Archive's records begin in Records are sketchy from 1970 until The committees retain records for two years, then these records are forwarded to the legislative library which retains them for a few years. They are finally housed in the State Archives.

Florida Legislative Histories Example: Senate Bill 0306: Relating to Public Protection  Note that there are three Staff Analyses available for this bill.  Note, too, that previous versions of the text and the record of the vote on that particular bill are available.

Further Assistance If you have any questions, please feel free to us at: or call us at: 680- Also, the Reference Desk at the library is staffed from:  9am–8pm Monday-Thursday  10am-5pm Friday  10am-2pm Saturday  2pm-6pm Sunday