United States Legislative Branch Publications, 1789-1989 

About this Section

This section follows the legislative process and the documents created through the process. For each document series this guide attempts to identify and locate major historical print and digital collections within the Indiana University library system. It also identifies major digital collections now being made available free on the Internet. It does not attempt to list every historical index or source produced over the years, but identifies the most comprehensive, authoritative, and useful edition.

The legislative branch of the United States government consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate, collectively known as Congress. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States, lists a wide range of powers delegated to Congress. Its primary responsibility is to make all laws for the government of the United States. Primary among these is the control over government taxing and spending. Congress is also responsible for regulating commerce, printing and coining money, declaring war, raising and supporting the military, appointing courts below the Supreme Court, approving federal appointments, approving treaties, conducting investigations, impeaching and trying federal officials, and proposing amendments to the Constitution.

House and Senate Rules and Procedures of Lawmaking

House and Senate manuals are issued every Congress and contain the rules, standing orders, and other operating procedures for their respective chamber. Parliamentary procedure for the House derives from four sources, the Constitution of the United States, Jefferson's manual prepared by Thomas Jefferson, 1789-1801, rules adopted by the House from the beginning of its existence, and decisions of the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole. The Senate manual includes its standing rules and orders, laws and resolutions affecting the business of the Senate, Jefferson's manual, the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and Constitution of the United States. House and Senate manuals are issued as documents in the United States Congressional Serial Set. In addition to the House rules, Representatives are governed by the ways in which these rules have been interpreted over the years and applied to various kinds of activities. These precedents include an exhaustive compilation of procedural rulings and interpretations, accompanied by summaries of the events producing them. The Senate issues a similar document.

Bills and Resolutions

Bills are Public or Private. Public bills deal with matters of concern to the people in general. Private bills apply only to specific individuals such as an immigration case or a claim against the government. The numbering of bills started during the 15th Congress. Bills are numbered consecutively in the order in which they are introduced during the two-year Congressional term. Bills that do not complete the legislative process automatically die at the end of the Congressional term in which they were introduced. Bills are cited as House Bill (H.R.) or Senate Bill (S.). Resolutions are simple, joint, or concurrent. Simple resolutions normally deal with operations of the House or Senate and are cited as H.Res. or S.Res. Concurrent resolutions deal with the operations of both houses. They are cited as H.Con.Res. or S.Con.Res.). Like bills, joint resolutions become law after approval of both houses of Congress and the President. Joint Resolutions are usually more narrowly defined than bills, and may deal with special appropriations or Congressional foreign policy initiatives. They are cited as H.J.Res. or S.J.Res.

Complete collections of bills and resolutions are rare. The Government Printing Office did not begin sending bills and resolutions to federal depository libraries until 1938. Even so libraries were allowed to discard them after each Congressional term. However, the Library of Congress and National Archives have complete collections, and the Congressional Information Service (CIS) sells a microfiche collection of bills issued from 1791 to the present.

*Congressional Record is inconsistent as a source for the text of bills.  Although parliamentary procedure requires that bills be read three times on the floor before they are passed, the text is usually substituted in the Record with a statement such as the Clerk read the bill or by printing the title of the bill.  Only a tiny fraction of the text of bills can be found in the Congressional Record.

Committee Action

Committee Members and Other Information

Committees consider legislation, conduct hearings and investigations, and carry out other assignments as instructed by the chamber. Some (but not all) Committees have Subcommittees, which handle specific issues assigned to the committee. The Official Congressional Directory includes information on members of Congress and other government officials and membership of committees, commissions and boards. It has been issued every Congress since 1809. It was compiled and printed by private printers until 1847. The Biographical Directory of American Congress, 1774-1949 was first issued as a House Document in 1950 and has been continuously updated since then.

Committee Hearings

Hearings are among the most important Congressional publications. They consist of testimony given before committees and frequently contain detailed supporting documentation. Types of hearings include exploratory, legislative, evaluative and oversight, and appropriations. Appropriation hearings provide detailed information about the operations and priorities of departments and units being heard. During the nineteenth century hearings on major bills were not routine. The investigative nature of the government grew in the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Hearings were not considered public documents, but internal information gathered for the Committee. Printed copies were made available to Committee members only. By 1924 protests by librarians and students resulted in larger printings made available for purchase. Since 1941 they have been freely distributed to federal depository libraries.

Committee Prints

Committee prints are internal documents prepared by Committee staff, the Congressional Research Service staff, or other experts to help inform committee members on pending legislation. Committee prints include a variety of materials such as legislative histories, studies on public policy, investigative reports, and analyses of similar bills on a topic. Far more Committee prints have been issued in the twentieth century than the nineteenth. Until the 1970's Committee prints were issued inconsistently to the public, some not at all, some for sale, some by written request to the Committee or Representative, and some sent to federal depository libraries. A Committee chairperson is not obligated to authorize Committee prints for distribution or sale. However, the Library of Congress and commercial publishers have made efforts to locate and publish them.

Committee Reports

Committee reports describe the purpose and scope of the bill or resolution and reasons for recommending approval to the full House or Senate. Reports may provide summaries of insights gained from hearings and other investigations. Reports may also provide details on how the bill should be implemented and its desired result. For this reason, Reports are often used by the Courts to determine "legislative intent" when interpreting statute.

House and Senate Reports were among the first documents ordered printed and publicly distributed. They became one of the major ongoing series that constitute the United States Congressional Serial Set (see IPFW's guide to the United States Congressional Serial Set 1789-1989 for more details) which began publication and distribution in 1817 with the 15th Congress. Reports on private bills and simple and concurrent resolutions were not distributed to federal depository libraries between 1905 and 1938, but were sent as a lettered series to the House and Senate libraries, Library of Congress, National Archives, and Public Documents Library at the Government Printing Office. Federal depository libraries began receiving them again in 1939.

Floor Debates and Proceedings

The official record of floor action- debate and passage of legislation - is the Congressional Record and its predecessors. Before 1873 the record of Congressional proceedings was issued by commercial printers and  variously recorded in the Annals of Congress, Register of Debates, and Congressional Globe. These publications do not contain a verbatim account, but a compilation of summaries of debates. In fact, the Annals of Congress were not published until ten years after the years covered. The Annals consists of text compiled from newspapers and other sources. The Register of Debates was also not a verbatim record of the debates in Congress, but a compilation of summaries. Since Congress depended upon private publishers and reporters to record early debates they are necessarily limited by newspaper column space, political leanings of editors and reporters, the ability of the reporter to hear the debate and his skill in recording the proceedings. The Congressional Globe became more of a verbatim record when Congress began paying the salaries of official floor reporters. The Congressional Record more accurately records actual debates in Congress, but since 1824 members were permitted to insert "speeches" and other statements into the Record not actually delivered on the floor and also are allowed to revise and edit remarks made on the floor. Not until 1978 did the Congressional Record begin to indicate, in various ways, speeches not delivered on the floor. The Congressional Record is published daily while Congress is in session. At the end of the session they are cumulated into a permanent bound edition. The modern daily Congressional Record has four sections. The proceedings of the House (H) and Senate (S) include the speeches and additional material inserted by Senators and Representatives. The Extension of Remarks (E) includes information separate from the day's proceedings, such as speeches, reprints of newspaper articles, telegrams, excerpts from magazines, recipes, jokes, poetry, etc. Before 1968 the Extension of Remarks was called the Appendix. Between 1955-1967, the Appendix (Extension of Remarks) was deleted from the permanent bound edition of the Congressional Record. The Daily Digest (D) has been a part of the Congressional Record since 1947. It summarizes activities in the House and Senate during the previous day, lists schedules of committee and subcommittee hearings, and a statistical summary of Congressional activity. The Congressional Record Index includes an index to the proceedings in the House and Senate and a "History of Bills and Resolutions." The "History of Bills and Resolutions" provides references to all actions on bills and resolutions in the Congressional record including introduction, reports, amendments, debates, veto, passage, and public law number.

Voting Records

Voting records are most accurately reflected in the House and Senate Journals to 1873 when the Congressional Record began recording votes and tallies of voice votes. Commercial publisher Congressional Quarterly provides enhanced voting charts in its Congress and the Nation, CQ Almanac and CQ Weekly series. After 1990, Congressional voting patterns are readily available from various sources on the Internet.

Laws of the United States

Statutes at Large

Laws enacted by Congress were among the first documents ordered printed and widely distributed to the public. From 1789 to 1872 Congress ordered that laws be printed in newspapers. While this provided wide circulation to the public, it was inconvenient for attorneys and judges. The first three compilations of public and private laws were produced and printed by commercial firms. The first edition, called the Folwell edition included all public acts and treaties in force from 1789 through 1813. However, it omitted private laws and laws repealed or expired. The second edition, produced by Bioren and Duane, included the texts of all public and private laws, repealed or obsolete, and Indian treaties and treaties with foreign countries from 1789 through 1845. In 1845 the government contracted with Little, Brown & Co. to produce a collection of all public and private laws, foreign treaties and Indian treaties chronologically arranged by session of Congress. This began the series called the Statutes at Large. Little, Brown and Company produced four updated editions until 1873 when the Government Printing Office took over the task of compiling and printing the Statutes at Large. In 1895 Congress authorized the distribution of the Statutes at Large to federal depository libraries. The Statutes at Large include in numerical order by congressional session public laws, private laws, joint and concurrent resolutions of Congress, treaties and international agreements until 1950, and proclamations of the President.

Brief bibliography:

Dwan, Ralph H. and Ernest R. Feidler. "The Federal Statutes-Their History and Use." Minnesota Law Review 22, no. 7 (1938): 1008-29.

Surrency, Erwin C. "The Publication of Federal Laws: A Short History." Law Library Journal 79, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 469-484.

United States Code

While the Statutes at Large provided a chronological compilation of all laws, obsolete and repealed, practitioners demanded compilations of laws currently in force by subject. In 1810 the President authorized the compilation of laws, treaties, proclamations, and other administrative documents currently in force governing public lands. This collection was periodically updated and other collections on naturalization, the post office, and military laws and regulations were authorized. In the 1860s Congress began commissioning the work of simplifying, arranging, and consolidating by subject all statutes of the United States. This was accomplished in 1874 when Congress enacted into law the Revised Statutes. A corrected edition was issued in 1878 and is considered the most authoritative. The Revised Statutes is unique in that it repealed all statutes enacted by Congress before December 1, 1873 and enacted into permanent law all provisions in the Revised Statutes. This was the first and remains the only complete codification of the permanent laws of the United States. The Revised Statutes of 1874 underwent several revisions until 1926 when Congress regularized the practice by authorizing the publication of the United States Code, with supplements at the end of each session of Congress and a new edition every six years. While the United States Code is recognized as the official restatement of laws in force, Congress has been slow to enact the Code into law, that is to accept the Code as permanent law over any statutes currently in force. In 1939 Congress began enacting selected titles of the United States Code into positive law. By 1999 only about one half of the titles in the United States Code had been enacted into positive law.

Brief bibliography:

Dwan, Ralph H. and Ernest R. Feidler. "The Federal Statutes-Their History and Use." Minnesota Law Review 22, no. 7 (1938): 1008-29.

Surrency, Erwin C. "The Publication of Federal Laws: A Short History." Law Library Journal 79, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 469-484.

Senate Advice and Consent

Presidential Nominations

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution gives the president the power to nominate principal officials of the executive branch and judiciary, subject to the advice and consent of the Senate. Approximately 99% of Presidential nominees are routinely confirmed. Others, such as cabinet officials, heads of agencies, and Supreme Court nominees often receive close scrutiny. The President sends nominations to the Clerk of the Senate who refers them to the appropriate Committee. The Committee has four options, report to the Senate favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation, or take no action at all. Committees may hold hearings on nominations.  Sometimes one hearing is held for all nominees before the Committee. Most hearings are open to the public unless closed by the Senate (see section on Committee Action - Committee Hearings). The proceedings of the Senate on nominations are conducted in executive session.  Proceedings of the Senate in executive session are recorded in the Senate Executive Journals. These proceedings are limited to motions and actions. Since 1929 executive sessions have been open to the public unless ordered closed by the Senate and proceedings and debate appear in the Congressional Record (see section on Floor Debates and Proceedings). Senate Executive Journals are printed as they become unclassified by a special order of the Senate.  Positive recommendations by the Committee are documented in Senate Executive Reports. Senate Executive Reports are classified until released by special order of the Senate. Senate Executive Reports did not become part of the United States Congressional Serial Set until 1979.

Brief bibliography:

Garcia, Rogelio. Cabinet and Other High Level Nominations that Failed to be Confirmed, 1789-1989. Congressional Research Service, 1989.

Palmer, Betsy. Evolution of the Senate's Role in the Nomination and Confirmation Process: A Brief History (Congressional Research Service)

Rybicki, Elizabeth. Senate Consideration of Presidential Nominations :  Committee and Floor procedures (Congressional Research Service )

Treaties

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution states that the President has the power to make treaties with the advice and consent of two-thirds of Senators present. The process of treaty ratification includes Presidential negotiation and signing, referral to the Senate for approval, ratification by the President, ratification by other parties to the treaty, and the final proclamation. The Senate may reject, give its advice and consent to ratification with or without amendment, or take no action. Senate rejection means a treaty is dead until the action is reversed. Senate amendments to treaties must be accepted by all parties. Acceptance by the Senate is not the last step. The President ratifies and proclaims treaties. Of treaties submitted to the Senate in the first 200 years, 90% have been approved by the Senate. Since 1789 only 21 treaties have been rejected by Senate vote. However, while most treaties that have come up for a vote are approved by the Senate, other treaties remain "unperfected" (not in force) because the Senate never took action on the treaty sent by the President or the Senate made changes to the treaty that were unacceptable to the President or countries involved.

The proceedings of the Senate on treaties are conducted in executive session. Committees may hold hearings on treaties.  Most hearings are open to the public unless closed by the Senate (see section on Committee Action - Committee Hearings). Proceedings of the Senate in executive session are recorded in the Executive Journals of the Senate. These proceedings are limited to motions and actions. Since 1929 executive sessions have been open to the public unless ordered closed by the Senate and proceedings and debate appear in the Congressional Record (see section on Floor Debates and Proceedings). Senate Executive Journals are printed as they become unclassified by a special order of the Senate. The transmission of the treaty from the President to the Senate is recorded in Senate Executive Documents. These documents include the text of the treaty before any changes by the Senate, and may also include related documents such as an article-by-article analysis of the treaty, memorandums of understanding, procedural protocols, and notes. Senate Executive Documents are printed as they become unclassified by a special order of the Senate. Senate Executive Documents became Senate Treaty Documents in 1977 and were issued as part of the United States Congressional Serial Set in 1979. Positive recommendations by the Committee are documented in Senate Executive Reports. Senate Executive Reports are classified until released by special order of the Senate. Senate Executive Reports did not become part of the United States Congressional Serial Set until 1979. (see also United States Executive Branch Publications- Office of the President--Treaties and International Agreements)

Brief bibliography:

Collier, Ellen C. The Meaning of "Advice and Consent of the Senate" in the Treaty Making Process. Library of Congress, 1969.

Treaties (U.S. Senate)  January 2005)

Treaties and Other International Agreements: The Role of the United States Senate, A Study. Government Printing Office, 1993 (Government Publications Y4.F76/2:S.PRT. 103-53)