Legislative History

• Legislative Process:
  • Bill > Public Law (Session Law) > Codified in the United States Code
    • For more information on the federal legislative process, please see our Federal Statutes guide. 

• ​Legislative History: What happened to the bill before it became a law and was codified in the U.S.C.?

• Not every piece of legislative history has the same persuasive authority
   

This section provides a brief overview of the federal legislative process and the types of legislative history documents that are produced in each stage.

Step 1: Bill is Introduced

• Text of the bill

• Sponsor statement

Step 2: Bill is Assigned to a Committee

• Committee Prints

• Committee Hearings

• Committee Report
  • Also known as House Report or Senate Report.
  • Committee Report and Conference Report (see Step 4) are the best sources for legislative intent.

Step 3: Debates, Amendments, and Votes (if the bill survives the committee stage)

• Transcripts of the debates

• Amended version(s) of the bill

• Voting records

Step 4: Conference Committee (if the bill is passed)

• When there is a difference between the version passed by the House and the version passed by the Senate, the legislators may form a Conference Committee to discuss the difference and to reach an agreement. 

• The conference committee produces the conference report.

  • Conference Reports are a very important source of legislative intent as they report on the compromise bill.
  • Conference reports are published as House Reports.

Step 5: Signed (or vetoed) by the President

• Presidential Signing Statements

• Versions of the bill

  • A bill is likely modified throughout the legislative process.

  • Use the addition, deletion, and modification of a language to make a legislative history argument

• Committee Reports and Conference Reports

  • ​The most important sources of legislative history 

  • Usually includes the bill's text and explains why the committee recommends the bill's passage.