Resources for Externship Students

According to Black's Law Dictionary, legislative history is defined as "the proceedings leading to the enactment of a statute, including hearings, committee reports, and floor debates. Legislative history is sometimes recorded so that it can later be used to aid in or influence interpretations of the statute."

Legislative history may include:

• various versions of the bill
• committee reports
• committee meeting minutes
• legislative floor debates
• executive messages

One of the tutorial videos from Georgetown Law explains how to locate federal legislative using ProQuest Congressional and ProQuest Legislative Insight. Boyd Law students may access the ProQuest databases via

• Law Library Database Page (if you are on campus)
• MyBoydLaw portal (if you are off campus)
  • Click "Library" and you will see the list of library databases.

1. Find the relevant statutes (e.g. USC or NRS)

2. At the end of the text of the statute, you will see a section showing which session law created or amended the sub-section that is relevant to your issue.

3. Examine the session law (s) (start with the most recent session law).

4. Once you find the relevant session law, note its public law number (for federal) or the bill number (for Nevada).

5A. For federal legislative history search, use ProQuest Congressional, Proquest Legislative Insight, HeinOnline, or Congress.gov to access legislative history documents. 

5B. For Nevada legislative history, use the state legislature's compiled legislative history database. If the database does not have a compiled legislative history for your bill, then go the state legislature's website, click "session info" on the left-hand column and select the session for your bill. Then, click your bill number to access the bill information web page containing various information including committee minutes and versions of the bill.