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Legislative Documents

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United States Capitol Rotunda. Senate and Representatives government home in Washington D.C.
Updated July 27, 2026

The Legislative Process

If you’re unfamiliar with how a bill becomes law, there are several helpful resources that explain the process. Understanding the basic steps of lawmaking will help you identify the most relevant documents for your research.

I'll Just a Bill
I'm Just a Bill

I’m Just a Bill is from the Schoolhouse Rock! series, a classic educational cartoon first aired on ABC in 1976. It explains the basics of how a bill becomes a law in the United States. This video was updated in 2021 by POLITICO to show the realistic way a bill becomes a law in the modern Congress.

Schoolhouse Rock I'm just a bill

Bills and Resolutions

The four principal forms of congressional legislation are bills, joint resolutions, concurrent resolutions, and simple resolutions. Once introduced, each measure is assigned a legislative number, printed, and referred to a committee for consideration. For a detailed explanation of each type of legislation, see the  Bills & Resolutions section of House.gov. The resources below are among the most comprehensive sources for locating the full text of congressional bills and resolutions.

Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. It provides access to the full text of bills, resolutions, and public laws from the 6th to the current Congress, except the 12th Congress; and Senate bills & resolutions from the 16th to 42nd Congresses to the present.

Check the coverage dates of collections for specific date ranges. Use the Advanced Search to search for bills and resolutions by Congress, legislation and law numbers, words and phrases, legislation type, action/status, sponsors and co-sponsors, and committees.

GovInfo, a service of the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO), provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the U.S. Federal Government including congressional bills, hearings, reports, and other documents. It serves as a digital repository for information produced by the federal government.

GovTrack provides complete information on bills back to 1973, plus limited information on enacted laws from 1951-1972, and bills from 1799-1873. GovTrack follows the status of bills in Congress from introduction to enactment. Users can track bills by subject or keyword and set up alerts for important legislation of interest. GovTrack allows you to track the activities of the U.S. Congress in real time.

ProQuest Congressional specializes in providing U.S. legislative publications and government information. Much of the material is available in full text. This includes pending bills, laws, legislative histories, committee reports and documents, congressional hearings and select committee prints, and biographical data about members of Congress. The date ranges of full-text publications vary depending on an institution’s subscription.

  • Congressional Basic provides indexing for all bills from 1970 to the present.
  • Historical Indexes provide indexing for bills up to 1969.
  • Digital U.S. Bills and Resolutions provides the full text of bills from 1789 forward.

Committee Hearings

After a bill is referred to a committee, the committee may schedule public hearings to gather testimony from witnesses and experts. Most significant legislative proposals receive hearings, although not every hearing is published. Published hearings typically become available anywhere from two months to two years after they are held. Congressional hearings generally fall into four categories: legislative, oversight, investigative, and presidential nomination hearings. Transcripts of most published hearings are available, and an increasing number of hearings can also be viewed through archived video recordings.

Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information, including hearings. House Committee Hearings and Meetings Video also provides access to live and archived hearings and videos from January 2012 to the present. Committees of the U.S. Congress links to hearing schedules, hearing videos, and published hearings transcripts. The site is usually updated the morning after a session adjourns.

Committee Reports

When a U.S. House or Senate committee votes to report a bill, it produces a committee report. Each report describes the bill and the committee's actions on it, summarizes findings from hearings, and records the outcome of the committee's deliberations. The following resources provide access to the full text of U.S. House or Senate committee reports.

House Debates

After a bill is reported out of Committee, it proceeds to the floor of the House or Senate for consideration and debate. During the debates, members argue for and against the proposed legislation. All debates on the bill are read into the Congressional Record, which is the official record of the proceedings, debates, and activities of Congress. The Congressional Record also contains inserted materials, communications from the President and executive agencies, memorials, and petitions, and the bill's full text, the text of any amendments, and the record of votes taken. The following resources provide access to the Congressional Record.

Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is Congress's own nonpartisan research agency. Its analysts support Senators and Representatives throughout the legislative process by preparing reports that offer objective background information and in-depth analysis of public policy issues. These reports cover nearly every subject Congress addresses such as law, domestic and foreign policy, defense, trade, finance, natural resources, science, and technology. Because CRS reports are thoroughly documented with citations, data, tables, and charts, they are valuable resources for anyone trying to understand complex legislative and policy issues.
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Political Theory: Painting of Niccolò Machiavelli, Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian called the father of modern political theory and political science.
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