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How to Use ProQuest Legislative Insight

Find Public Laws that enacted or amended a particular section of the US Code

When a public law is published in slip law form, the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration, provides marginal editorial notes giving citations to laws mentioned in the text. The marginal notes also give the United States Code classifications enabling the reader to know where the law will appear in the Code. These notes appear in the Legislative Insight compiled legislative history and are searchable on the Home screen or in a Quick or Guided Search. We currently use the citation format for the United States Code Service, the LexisNexis published version, or USCS.

To find the public law that enacted or amended a section of the US Code, on the Home screen, type the citation in double quotes in this format XX USCS YYYY where XX is the Title (1-51) and YYYY is the section. Do not include subsections such as (a), (b) etc.

If you have ProQuest Congressional, the text of the US Code, including the History section, is included in the Basic subscription. You can use the Search by Number form to enter the Code section to read the History and Amendments section to determine which public law amended the subsection or language you are researching.

Here is the slip law- you can see the US Code citation in the margin.

Next, I might want to find out if any of the reports or other publications in the legislative history discussed the phrase knowingly and willfully? As luck would have it, you can find out on page 3 of this report.