Overview
Legislation starts out as a bill (bill number), passes through Congress and is signed (or not) by the President to become a slip law (public law number). It is then published chronologically in the Statutes at Large and then gets broken up and codified in the relevant section of the U.S. Code (statute). When trying to find the history of a statute, you have to work your way backwards through the process. You will need the following information in order to navigate your way through legislative history research:
Important Citations to Find
| U.S. Code Section |
Each section of a law in the U.S. Code will be followed by a "Credits" note, which indicates when the section was originally enacted and every subsequent amendment. The most recent changes are listed first. Here is an example of the Credits section of the leave requirements provision of the Family and Medical Leave Act, 29. U.S.C. §2612 (2012).
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| Public Law Number |
The sequential number assigned to a bill once it has passed through both houses of Congress and is signed by the President. Public law numbers are arranged first by the session of Congress and then numbered in the order in which they were passed during that session. Format: Pub. L. (session of Congress)-(# number of the law). You can find the Public Law Number for each amendment to your statute in the Credits note at the bottom of the section of U.S. Code. Example: Pub. L. 111-119 LexisNexis' United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.) and Westlaw's United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.) usually link you to the public law in the Credits note. |
| Name of the Act |
Many laws are known by "popular" names, although the name may change during the legislative process. E.g., "Affordable Care Act" (popular name) vs. "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (official name). Knowing the name of the act is especially useful when searching electronic sources. Several sources include Popular Names lists, including the U.S.C.A. and the U.S.C.S. Cornell's Legal Information Institute also has an online Table of Popular Names. |
| U.S. Statutes at Large |
The official government source of all public laws, arranged in the order in which they were enacted. The Bluebook abbreviation is Stat. The number preceding Stat. is a volume number, the number following Stat. is a page number. Example: 123 Stat. 3477
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| Bill number |
When a bill is introduced in either the House or the Senate, it is assigned a number. Bill numbers are important for tracking legislative history. Bills originating in the House of Representations are designated H.R. and Senate bills are designated S. Bill numbers are displayed in the Statutes at Large; they are not found in Credits of sections in the U.S. Code. |
