LEGISLATIVE HISTORY WEBINAR

Presented by Maureen Booth Law Librarian Department of the Interior Library May 7, 2013

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Department of the Interior Library for training in producing a Legislative History.We are going to give an overview of the bill/law- making process and then go step-by-step through gathering the materials electronically for a Legislative History.

The goal today is to take you through the many steps and thought processes of doing a legislative history.

INTRODUCTION (CONT.)

Two things to be aware of: 1. You don’t have to check each of these

resources for every Legislative History.2. There are even more places to look then I am

covering in this particular session.

The collection of legislative materials is not governed by a standard set of rules. Collecting the information changed for many reasons. Changes in administrations, technology, and public education, all affected the collecting of the information and the access to the information. For us in the Library, it is job security!

WEBINAR OVERVIEW

Overview of how a Public Law is made

Public Laws vs. Private Laws

Why a Legislative History is Compiled

The Legislative Process• Introduction of a Bill

in Congress• Referral of a Bill to a

House or Senate Committee

The Legislative Process (cont.)• Committee Hearings on

Bill• Mark-up Sessions/Versions

of a Bill• Reports, Documents,

Prints• Debates on Bill• Bill Amendments• Passage of the Bill

Terms of versions of Bills Voting The President’s Role with

Bill

WEBINAR OVERVIEW (CONT.)

Public Law Number Statute at Large

Citation Congressional

Record Legislative Day United States

Congressional Serial Set (the Serial Set)

PUBLIC LAWS VS. PRIVATE LAWS

o There are Public Laws and Private Laws.

o The Public Law affects all Americans whereas a Private Law is for the benefit of an individual or specific corporation.

o We are only covering Public Laws.

WHY A LEGISLATIVE HISTORY IS COMPILED

You do a Legislative History for two reasons:

1. To collect all the material you may ever need to research every nuance of a Public Law or Act.

2. To be able to ascertain the meaning of an obscure or ambiguous section or word of a Public Law or Act. Opposing sides, using the same resources, will produce arguments for both interpretations of the same obscure part.

All the history is attached to the bill that became law. Thus, we need to get the number of the bill and the Congress that it was passed by.

WHY A LEGISLATIVE HISTORY IS COMPILED (CONT.)

Tip: Just because something says it is a Legislative History, it may not contain all the elements that are needed to interpret the reasoning behind a bill. Some commercially available Legislative Histories edit out materials, choosing only the most relevant items. These compilations do not tell you what was not included, thus waylaying your research as you are led to believe you are using a complete history.

THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS

Congress meets for two years with a new session beginning in odd numbered years. The second session begins in the even years.

Tip: There may be a third or more sessions. These are generally during time of war or economic woe.

INTRODUCTION OF A BILL BY MEMBER OF CONGRESS

The bill may be written by anyone, but only a Member of the House of Representatives or the Senate may introduce it.

The elective representative introducing the bill may have co-signers. Other members of the Chamber may sign on at a later date.

Tip: The person introducing the legislation and the co-signers may have importance to the researcher using the Legislative History.

GENERAL FACTS ABOUT BILLS

• A Bill is accepted to mean any piece of legislation.

• A Bill becomes law. • Passage is required in both Chambers and the

President must sign it into law or allow it to become law without his/her signature.

Tip: A Bill, once signed by the President or having made its way out of Congress and not vetoed, becomes known as law, Public Law or/and an Act.

GENERAL FACTS ABOUT BILLS (CONT.)

Bills are newly numbered in each Congress.

House of Representative bills are numbered with an ‘H.R.’ preceding the number.

Senate bills are numbered with a’ S.’ preceding the number.

Tip: Do not mistake ‘H.R.’ as an abbreviation for House Report. H.R. stands for House of Representatives. House Report is abbreviated as H. Rpt.

COMPANION BILLS

Companion Bills are comparable bills that are introduced in both Chambers during the same session with similar language. There is often some cooperation between the sponsors of these bills. Thus the Senate and the House may have similar bills with differing emphasis.

There even may be multiple comparable bills entered in the same Chamber.

COMPANION BILLS (CONT.)

Tip: Bill(s) may be discharged in lieu of pending bill. It may mean that the successful bill has support of powerful

members. It may be deemed that a particular bill has greatest success of

passing both chambers. When you find multiple comparative bills, you must do

legislative research on these as well. There will not be extensive material to review, but the compromises and changes that now comprise the ‘successful’ bill may only be determined or found in the debates, reports or hearings of these other bills.

These changes or compromises may have been made in exchange for a member withdrawing or not fighting for his or her bill.

This lets the researcher get an idea of ‘What Congress was thinking.”

HOUSE & SENATE COMMITTEES

After a bill is introduced, it is referred to a House or Senate Committee.

The Speaker of the House determines what committee a bill is referred to. If there are many subjects covered in the bill, it may be sent to multiple House Committees.

The Senate goes with primary jurisdiction based on the bulk of the subject matter. A bill may be referred to a number of committees as a bill may have many subject matters.

HOUSE & SENATE COMMITTEES (CONT.)

Tip: There is no requirement in either the House or Senate that committees act on a bill. A majority of the committee must vote it out for consideration and a majority of the whole Chamber must vote on whether the bill should get further consideration.

CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS

Hearings may or may not be held; they are not required by either Chamber.

Hearings provide citizens, federal agencies, and special interest groups an opportunity to let Congress know the issues and the level of support for a bill.

There may multiple hearings held in different locations over several months.

A researcher uses hearings to find out ‘what influenced Congress.’ The researcher may also determine the intentions of the Committee by who the Committee invites to present before them.

CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS (CONT.)

Tip: Hearings are time-consuming and expensive to hold. Therefore, you may find Hearings from prior Congresses being part of the legislative history of a later bill. This indicates that an early attempt at passing a similar bill in an earlier Congress was not successful. Testimony of the witnesses at these Hearings seldom changes, so the text of the testimony will be presented again.

MARK-UP SESSIONS/VERSIONS OF A BILL

A bill will generally undergo a “mark-up” session where the original language is altered or deleted by Congressional committees and subcommittees.

Changes to the text of the original bill are amendments and voted on by the committee members.

MARK-UP SESSIONS/VERSIONS OF A BILL (CONT.)

Tip: Mark-up: The process by which Congressional committees and subcommittees debate, amend, and rewrite proposed legislation.

REPORTS, DOCUMENTS, PRINTS

A committee may write a report to accompany the bill. This report should explain the committee’s actions and compare the bill to existing law.

The House requires the committee to submit a report if it sends a bill to the House Floor.

This report is to tell the Chamber why the legislation is necessary and what it is the legislation will accomplish or remedy.

REPORTS, DOCUMENTS, PRINTS (CONT.)

Tip: Sounds great, huh? Well, the report is only as good as it is written. All House Bills will have a report, so there are many House Reports. Remember, the abbreviation for a House Report is: H. Rpt.

REPORTS, DOCUMENTS, PRINTS (CONT.)

The Senate does not have this requirement, but may submit a report.

After it is reported, the bill then waits for scheduling for consideration from the floor. This is a political decision and rests with the majority party’s leaders.

These will be mentioned in the Congressional Record, but not inserted. To get to these documents, you need to use the United States Congressional Serial Set.

REPORTS, DOCUMENTS, PRINTS (CONT.)

Tip: These documents are reported in the Congressional Record, but the text is not included, unless it is a Conference Report. (More on this later.) The full text can be found in the United States Congressional Serial Set, and online in PDF format at the Proquest Congressional Collections and U.S. Congressional Serial Set produced by Readex. The Government Printing Office (GPO) has some of the Serial Set available, but it is not complete: http://www.gpo.gov/help/u.s._congressional_serial_set.htm

UNITED STATES CONGRESSIONAL SERIAL SET

United States Congressional Serial Set is a compilation of the materials Congress orders printed by the Government Printing Office (GPO).

Tip: The full text can be found in the United States Congressional Serial Set, and online in PDF format at the Proquest Congressional Collections and U.S. Congressional Serial Set produced by Readex.

The Government Printing Office (GPO) has some of the Serial Set available, but it is not complete: http://www.gpo.gov/help/u.s._congressional_serial_set.htm

DEBATES

Once a bill is on the floor, the debates may begin.

The House has time restrictions on all its debates and members will yield their time to fellow members. Debate in the House can end by a motion to close the debate.

The Senate has no time restrictions on its members and it is a challenge to end the debate process. The Senate must employ cloture to silence a member. Cloture takes 3 days and 60 votes.

DEBATES (CONT.)

Tip: Cloture: The only procedure by which the Senate can vote to place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby overcome a filibuster. Under the cloture rule (Senate Rule XXII), the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours, but only by vote of three-fifths of the full Senate, normally 60 votes.(http://www.senate.gov/reference/glossary_term/cloture.htm)

DEFINITIONS FROM WWW.GPO.GOV/HELP

Reports are from Congressional committees concerning proposed legislation and/or findings on matters under investigation

Senate Executive Reports are from the Committee on Foreign Relations relating to Treaties. They can also be reports of various committees regarding nomination of individuals.

Documents are various other materials ordered printed by both chambers of Congress. Documents can include reports of executive departments and agencies and committee prints if the information they contain is in demand.

Senate Executive Documents contain the text of a Treaty as it is submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification by the President of the United States.

AMENDMENTS

The House requires that amendments be germane to the bill at hand. The Senate does not require this and any Senator may introduce subject matter as an amendment.

AMENDMENTS (CONT.)

Tip: Amended Acts or Public Laws engender new Acts or Public Laws. At this time, there is no resource to go to that presents the original bill with all its amendments. The closest to this is Westlaw’s Popular Name Table. Under the original Act, they list all the amendments to that Act. With the wonderment of technology, Lexis and Westlaw can assist your research by providing you with changes/amendments, but their databases do not go back to 1789; they generally start in the 1990’s.

CONFERENCE COMMITTEE AGREEMENTS AND THE CONFERENCE REPORT

Because the House requires that amendments be germane to the bill at hand, but the Senate does not have this requirement and any Senator may introduce subject matter as an amendment, when the House and Senate must vote on the bill, it gives rise to the Conference Committee Agreements and the Conference Report.

Once both Chambers have passed similar versions of a bill, any differences have to be reconciled before it can be sent to the President to sign or not sign.

In the House, conferees are selected by the Speaker of the House. In the Senate, committee chairmen choose the conferees.

The goal is to negotiate a consensus version that the majority in both Chambers can support.

CONFERENCE COMMITTEE AGREEMENTS AND THE CONFERENCE REPORT (CONT.)

Once a majority of the conferees have agreed on a final text of a compromise measure, the Conference Report is presented. It has the agreed to legislative language and an explanation of how the compromise was reached.

The importance of the Conference Committee Report to the researcher is that this gives an idea of the give and take required to reach consensus of the bill. It provides insight to what Congress was thinking when it finalized the language of the bill.

CONFERENCE COMMITTEE AGREEMENTS AND THE CONFERENCE REPORT (CONT.)

Tip: You should always provide the researcher with the conference report. It lists line by line those lines of the bill that were deleted or amended. You will be asked for “the conference report” by the researcher.

But there is a conference report only if there are conflicting bills. Not every bill passed into law will have a conference report.

PASSAGE OF THE BILL Whichever Chamber finishes first sends the completed

measure to the other Chamber.

If no similar bill exists in the other Chamber, the second Chamber debates and amends it and passes it.

Or the second Chamber passes its own bill in the form of a grand substitute amendment to the first Chamber’s version. Both Chambers have passed the same bill, but with differing versions and the legislative process continues.

A final version must be agreed to by both Chambers. This can be done by amendments or by conference committee action.

TERMS FOR VERSIONS OF BILLS

First Chamber Reported version is

the version presented in the first Chamber.

Engrossed is the version after passage in first Chamber.

Act, formerly Bill, is when the bill is sent from the first Chamber to the second Chamber.

Second Chamber Reported is the

language of the bill from the second Chamber.

Engrossed is also the version after passage in the second Chamber. It may be the entire text or just the amendments.

TERMS FOR VERSIONS OF BILLS (CONT.)

Enrolled Bill is a final version of the bill with changes and amendments after being signed by the officials of both Chambers. This is the version that goes to the President.

VOTING

The conference report must be passed by a majority vote in both Chambers.

After both Chambers have adopted the conference report, an enrolled version of the bill is prepared by the originating Chamber.

Both the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate must sign the enrolled bill.

THE PRESIDENT’S ROLE Once the legislation is

presented to the President, he/she has ten days to do one of four things:

Sign the bill into law.

The Legislation becomes Law without Signature.

The legislation becomes law without the President’s signature after ten days and the Congress is still in session. Generally the President does not sign if he/she does not want association with the law, and/or does not feel he/she can sustain a veto.

Veto the bill.

The President declines to sign the bill within the 10 days. He/she returns it to the originating Chamber with an explanation of his/her reasons. The House and Senate have the remaining time in Congress to have a vote on overriding the veto. A 2/3rd majority is needed in both Chambers and the bill becomes law.

Tip: The President will do this as he/she does not want to be associated with the Act.

THE PRESIDENT’S ROLE (CONT.)

Pocket Veto. If the President does nothing in the ten days and Congress has adjourned, then the legislation is considered dead.

Tip: Called this because the President receives the signed Act and symbolically puts it into his jacket pocket and does nothing else to it.

PUBLIC LAW NUMBER After the bill is signed, it is whisked away by the National

Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and given a Public Law number and a Statutes at Large Citation.

The Public Law number is the Public Law, the number of the Congress and number of the bill enacted that Congress.

For example: Public Law 109-2 indicates that the law is the second bill enacted in the 109th Congress. Public Law designations just came into use in the 65th Congress, in 1951.

Tip: Public Law was used in earlier versions of the Statutes at Large, but the use was not official.

STATUTES AT LARGE CITATION

NARA publishes the enacted legislation into a reporter series called the Statutes at Large. 119 Stat. 2 indicates that the law can be found in Volume 119 of the Statutes at Large on page 2.

Tip: This is the most consistent citation for all Public Laws and Acts.

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

The Congressional Record reports the floor proceedings of Congress and contains other information as well.

The bound volumes do not match the daily versions and both purport to be substantially a verbatim report of the proceedings.

Congressmen and Senators may revise or extend their remarks and insert undelivered speeches. There is a Record of floor proceedings and the texts of amendments, conference reports and indices.

LEGISLATIVE DAY

The term Legislative Day is used because the Senate ‘recesses’ rather than ‘adjourns’ from day to day. Recessing over night does not trigger a new legislative day when the Senate reconvenes and may be still operating on the earlier legislative day.

This has to do with the rules and terms of legislative days and calendar days and the difference must be noted.

Tip: This situation can prove to be very tricky when you are trying to follow legislation electronically.

UNITED STATES CONGRESSIONAL SERIAL SET (SERIAL SET)

The United States Congressional Serial Set or the Serial Set contains the House and Senate Documents and the House and Senate Reports.

The reports are usually from Congressional committees dealing with proposed legislation.

The documents include all other papers ordered printed by the House or Senate. Documents may include reports of special investigations, reports of the Executive (President) or independent organizations and annual reports of non-governmental organizations.

For more information go to http:memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwss.html