What is Legislative History?
“The background and events leading to the enactment of a statute, including hearings, committee reports, and floor debates”
(Black’s Law Dictionary, deluxe 9th edition)
Legislative history can help you figure out what a law means and why it says what it does.
We recommend using Lexis Uni if you need to Shepardize a specific law. To Shepardize means to be able to follow a law backward and forward in time to see how it changes.
Legislative History at the Federal Level
- ProQuest CongressionalIncludes both published legislative histories, as well as the primary sources needed to conduct your own historic research on federal legislation. This database includes both published and unpublished hearing and committee reports, as well as the full text of all proposed bills back to the first congress of the U.S (1789).
- HeinOnlineHeinOnline contains links for the "US Code" and "US Federal Legislative History Library".
Legislative History at the state level
- Ohio Capitol Connection (Hannah)Search all Ohio legislation back to 1989. Includes hearings, testimonies, analyses, and other legislative documents specific pieces of legislation.
- Other U.S. State LegislaturesHere is a map of the US where you can easily find the state legislature you are researching. Within each of these sites, you can find state laws, codes, committee reports, bills, and legislative histories.