The University of Alabama School of Law
The University of Alabama School of Law
Some federal legislative history materials may be available in Bloomberg, Lexis and Westlaw, but ProQuest Congressional, ProQuest Legislative Insight, and ProQuest Regulatory Insight are more comprehensive. You can find these resources on Bounds Law Library website in the databases.
If you want to check the legislative history materials on Westlaw, you'll want to select or hover over the "History" tab towards the top of the code page, and select "Legislative History Materials." If you're using Lexis, if you're looking at a code, look to the left of the screen and make sure you're looking at "Search Terms" and not "Table of Contents," and select "Notes." You might be able to see some history of the code in the notes. For Bloomberg, you can find "Historical U.S. Code Versions" under "Legislative Resources," and the "Federal Register" under "Regulatory Resources," but the Federal Register only goes back to 01/04/1999 and the U.S. Code only covers back to 1994. Bloomberg's "CFR" doesn't have previous versions.
To find Legislative History using any version of ProQuest, you will need the citation to the "Public Law" or "Statutes at Large" citation. You can find these in the history or credits section found immediately following the statute's text on Lexis, Westlaw, or in a print code, as mentioned in "Updating Statutes and Regulations."
ProQuest Congressional is a great resource for legislation post-1969. Anything earlier than that would be best served using ProQuest Legislative Insight. If you use ProQuest Congressional, you'll likely be best served by doing an advanced search by selecting "Advanced" below the search bar, and narrowing your results by selecting only "Legislative Histories" on the left side of the screen in the content type.
For ProQuest Legislative Insight, you can either do an "Advanced Search," similar to that of ProQuest Congressional, or, you can select the "Search by Number" tab just above the search bar. If you know Public Law or Statutes at Large citation, you can use it here to find what you're looking for.
ProQuest Regulatory Insight is also a fantastic resource if you're looking for the CFR or the Federal Register. Similar to the previous ProQuest resources, you can do an "Advanced Search" or you can select "Search by Number." It'll pull up a page like the one below. This is especially useful if you know the citation.
You can also check HeinOnline for their "US Federal Legislative History Library," which contains compiled legislative history for many of the most significant federal laws.
Just like statutes, changes to regulations are listed in the history or credits sections following the regulation's text. These citations will point to the Federal Register where proposed and final rules are published by the relevant agency.
Unlike statutes, agencies include extensive background and purpose statements alongside the text of the regulation in the Federal Register. Use citations to the Federal Register found in the history or credits section to review background, purpose and intent, and explanations about adopted regulatory language - much easier than compiling a legislative history.
You'll likely want to use ProQuest Regulatory Insight or HeinOnline's "Federal Register Library" when searching for regulatory history.