Congress

    | About Congress | The Work of Congress [Bills, Hearings, Votes, Public Laws ...] |

| Legislative History | Support Agencies | Money and Congress |

| Statistics about Congress | Current News Sources About Congress |

About Congress

• Congressional Quarterly's Guide to Congress (GPML Ref JK 1021.C6).
  Basic source for learning about history, procedures, powers and workings of Congress.  
• U.S. Congress via Thomas (Library of Congress)
• House Web Server
• Senate Web Server
• C-SpanWeb Server
• GPO Access
  • Official Congressional Directory
  • Calendars of the U.S. House of Representatives and History of Legislation
• Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress - 1774-Present
• Congressional Documents and Debates 1774-1873
• Almanac of American Politics (National Journal)

 
The Work of Congress

• How Our Laws Are Made 
   |Full text via Thomas| |Summary Text via U.S. House| Government's Kids Version (9-12)|
• Publications From the Legislative Process
  • Bills: Text, Status, Indices
  • Congressional Hearings,Committee Prints & Reports
  • Committee Markups & Votes
  • Floor Debates
  • Floor Votes
  • Public Laws
  • Legislative History

Bills - Text, Status, Indices:

• LexisNexis Congressional 1989- 
• Thomas (Library of Congress)
  • Bill Text 1989-, Congressional Record Text, Bill Summary (only summaries available from 1973-1989) Bill Status, Major Legislation by Topics, the Congressional Record Index and more! 
• GPO Access 1993- Bill text only 
• Calendars of the U.S. House of Representatives and History of Legislation Status Information only

Definitions:

• Hearings: Official record of the committee's proceedings on pending legislation or national/international issues.
• Committee prints: Publications prepared for the use of committees and their staffs.
• Reports: Committee recommendations for passage of a bill to the full chamber.
• Documents:
  Issued by the full chamber with the designation H.Doc. or S.Doc., this publication type can contain Presidential messages on new legislation or vetoes, special reports of executive branch agencies, or biannual reports on committee activities.

Sources for Hearings, Prints, Reports & Documents:

Hearings, prints, reports and documents are available in print and/or microfiche in the GPML Library. Search these collections using the JHU Online Catalog or LexisNexis Congressional. Printed publications can be checked out.

• Hearings
  • LexisNexis Congressional 
        Search these components for hearings
    • Text of submitted testimony 1988-
    • CIS Index 1970-
    • Historical indexes 1789-1969
  • Check House and Senate Committee webpages via Thomas or posted hearings
• Prints, Reports and Documents:
  • Thomas 1995-
  • GPO Access 1995-
  • LexisNexis Congressional 
    • Full-text of Reports 1989-, Documents 1995-, Prints 1993-CIS Index 1970-
    • Historical indexes 1789-1969
    • Historical full-text U.S. Congressional Serial Set and American State Papers (1789-1969: database to be completed by Dec. 2005)

• Definitions:
  • Markups:
    committee or subcommitte meetings to make changes in a bill
  • Votes: 
    taken among committee members to determine if a bill should be referred to the floor for consideration
• Summaries of markup meetings can be found in :
  • The National Journal Markup Reports, September 1999 - 
  • LexisNexis Academic 1993 - ,
    • select News Category (NewsTranscripts)
    • News Source- (Political Transcripts)
    • Use markup as one search term.

• Thomas:
  • Indexes Congressional Record by keyword, date, speaker since 1989-
• Congressional Record - since 99th Congress 1985- current
• Congressional Record: via GPO - 1994- current
  • Available in print and microfiche at GPML

• Thomas
  Roll Call votes begin with the 2nd session of the 101st Congress (1989-90). Votes are arranged by Roll Call number for each session.
• Project Vote Smart
  Provides a comprehensive database of elected officials. One of its categories is "Voting Records" of members of Congress since 1991.
• LexisNexis Congressional :
  Key Votes: to find how a member has voted on selected bills
  Votes: to find how members voted on a particular bill
• Congressional Quarterly Publications
  • CQ Weekly :
    Weekly magazine that covers Congress.
    Print version is available in (GPML Doc Ref JK1.C66)
  • CQ Almanac: 
    Annually reviews the work of Congress and contains floor votes indexed in back of volume, available (GPML Doc Ref JK1.C67)
  • Congressinal Roll Call: 
    An annual chronology and analsysis of votes for each Congress. (GPML Ref JK1.C6735).

US Public Laws

Legislative History

A legislative history is a compilation of all the documents that have been generated in the process of a bill becoming a law, including presidential comments upon signing or voting the legislation.

  When compiling a legislative history, consult these sources for text of:

• | Bills | Hearings, Committee Reports/Prints | Floor Debates | Floor Votes | Public Law |Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents via GPO since 1993 |

Additional Sources & Background Information helpful for a legislative history

• Check the Libraries' online catalog for compiled legislative histories. Use the phrase legislative history along with words from the title of an act.
• LexisNexis Congressional (choose CIS Legislative Histories)
  From 1970- search prepared legislative histories by number or key words.
• Congressional Quarterly Publications
  • CQ Weekly:
    Weekly magazine that covers Congress.
    Print version is available in (GPML Doc Ref JK1.C66)
  • CQ Almanac: 
    Annually reviews the work of Congress and contains floor votes indexed in back of volume, available (GPML Doc Ref JK1.C67)
  • CQ Researcher:
    CQ Researcher, a weekly publication, covers the most current and controversial issues of the day with  complete summaries, insight into all sides of the issues, bibliographies and more. (GPML Doc Ref 35.C7)
• Legislative History Guide & Tutorial from the University of Michigan Government Documents Library web site 

 Congressional Support Agencies:

• General Accounting Office (GAO) Homepage
• Office of Technology Assessment | information about
• Congressional Budget Office
• Selected Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports
  • CRS Reports (via University of North Texas) One of the largest collections of web accessible CRS Reports produced since 1990.
  • Major Studies and Issue Briefs of the Congressional Research Service 1916- (Print Index and Microfiche) Gov. Pubs Ref Z1223. Z 7 M 342 (Electronic, full text version scheduled for release in late Fall 2005 via LexisNexis Congressional).
  • National Council for Science and Environment - National Library for the Environment
  • Penny Hill - We subscribe to the service. Contact GPML Librarians to order a report.

• Federal Election Commission: Financial information about candidates, parties, and PACS 
• Open Secrets
  Contains statistical information on political contributors and their contributions to congressional committees and individual legislators. Political Action Committee (PAC) profiles are also given. Check the Libraries' online catalog for historical print editions beginning with  1990 (JK1991.M261). 
• Registered Federal Lobbyist Database - allows searches by name or interest area.

• C-Span
  Provides public access to the political process that includes gavel to gavel coverage of the U.S. House & U.S. Senate
• CQ Weekly :
  Weekly magazine that covers Congress. Print version is available in (GPML Doc Ref JK1.C66) 
• The Hill 
  A non-partisan, non-ideological weekly newspaper that describes the inner workings of Congress.
• National Journal In print (GPML Doc Ref JK1.N28)
  Weekly magazine covering politics, policy and government.  

Additional sources for current news about Congress can be found using titles in the Political Science Databases