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A Project of Blackburn College and University of
Illinois at Springfield
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Branches | Databases
| Congressional Law & Legislation
| Agency Regulations | Presidential Publications | Federal
Court Cases
Note: Many links are using the Government
Printing Office's PURLs, or Persistent Uniform Resource Locators,
rather than direct links to the federal agencies. This improves
the links accuracy, in case the publication was moved to a different
URL. However, it does take an extra few seconds to retrieve
the Web site.
| Step
1: Introduce Legislation |
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Bills
(1989-present) - Introduced legislation from the House of
Representatives or the Senate. |
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Bill
Summary & Status (1973-present) - Summary of proposed
legislation and what happened to it. |
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Step 2: Legislation Sent to a Relevant Committee
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Committee Prints (1997-present) - Draft legislation, situation reports, statistical information, historical information, or legislative analysis. Not every committee print is online. |
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Hearings (1997-present) - Committee asked witnesses to testify on a subject. Not every hearing is available online. |
| Step
3: Legislation Passes Committee |
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Congressional Reports (1995-present) - Findings of a House or Senate Committee on bills the Committee passed. |
| Step
4: Vote on House or Senate Floor |
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Congressional
Record (1989-present) - Transcript of floor debates
and other inserted materials. |
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Step 5: If passes House or
Senate, moves to other legislative body, and start again
at Step 1.
Step 6: If there are differences
between the House and Senate versions, goes to Conference
Committee, results published as Conference Report, found
as a
House Report and printed in
Congressional Record. Once House a nd Senate agree
to same legislation, sent to the President for signature.
Step 7: If President vetoes
legislation, veto message published in
Congressional RecordFebruary 12, 20089">
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents. If
President signs legislation, becomes law.
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Public Laws via GPO Access (1995-present) or Public Laws via Thomas (1973-present) - Individual federal laws. |
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U.S. Code - Federal laws arranged by subject; keyword search or browse the latest print edition. |
Other Congressional Publications
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Congressional Directory (1995-present) - Who's who in Congress, as well as directories to agencies, members of the press, and foreign embassies. |
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Congressional Pictorial Directory (1995-present) - Who's who in Congress with black & white pictures. |
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Constitution
of the United States: Analysis & Interpretation
- Annotated version of the Constitution, with summaries
of Supreme Court cases that dealt with constitutional issues. |
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House Rules & Manual - Fundamental source material for parliamentary procedure used in the House of
Representatives. It is published during the first session of each Congress. Prior rules and precedents also available: Hinds' Precedents (1789-1907), Cannon's Precedents (1908-1936) and Deschler's Precendents (1936-1986). |
Rules written by Federal Agencies that have the force of law.
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Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) - Administrative rules and regulations of the federal agencies, arranged by subject. For a current but unofficial version, try the e-CFR. |
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Federal
Register (1994-present) - Daily publication of
rules, proposed rules, and notices of federal agencies and
organizations, as well as executive orders and other presidential
documents. See also the National Archive's page, which offers more explanation as to what the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations are. |
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Regulations.gov - Portal to around 160 different agencies proposed regulations, where you can then comment on the proposal. Also includes links to tutorials and the tools, such as the Federal Register. |
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