Overview

To Access Legislative Histories

Overview

LexisNexis® Congressional makes available CIS Index legislative histories only through the basic subscription.

Legislative histories enable users to trace the development of a public law from its early consideration to its enactment, including development that spans more than one Congress.   

Each CIS Index legislative history contains an abstract of the public law, bibliographic citations (title, date, collation, CIS Accession number, and Statutes at Large citation), and controlled vocabulary subject indexing.

For Legislative histories from 1998 (106th Congress) to the present, the following categories of publications are cited in each history to which they relate:

To Access Legislative Histories

Use these search forms:

Use these search criteria:

  • Keyword

  • Title

  • Subject index term

  • Public Law number

  • Statutes at Large citation

  • Enacted bill number

Highlights of what's covered as part of the basic subscription:

  • 1999 (106th Congress) to present: full legislative histories of all public laws

  • 1984 (98th Congress) to 1998 (105th Congress): full legislative histories of major public laws; ceremonial and housekeeping laws excluded

  • 1969 (91st Congress) to 1983 (97th Congress): abbreviated legislative histories of major public laws