Do First
Learn about the legislative process if you don't know it already. Check out the tab above.
What Are?
- REPORTS - what the committee sends back to the floor after a hearing. A summary with their vote on whether the bill should live or die. Does not have as much information as the HEARING.
- PRINTS - background information given to the committee.
Summary of Each Administration
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CQ AlmanacReference material, reporting, and analysis of the U.S. Congress
Additional Research Guide
In-depth Analysis of Topics
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Congressional DigestTakes one topic per month, gives pros and cons with background. Connection is through the libary catalog and search in Academic Search Pemier
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CQ ResearcherEach week analyzes a topic that's in the news
Legislative Action
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Congress.govCongress on the Internet. Bills, Congressional Record, and committee reports. It does not give you hearings or prints. Replaces Thomas (from the Library of Congress).
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GovTrack.usTrack activities of the U.S. Congress
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Congressional UniverseIndexes hearings, reports & prints (most from 1993). All are available on microfiche in Miller.
Hearings
Committees hold hearings to decide whether to send the bill to the floor or not. Hearings may be the most useful to you since they include expert testimony on both sides that won't go into the committee's report. An expert can give statistics or other documentation that is then appended to their testimony. Hearings can be very lengthy documents, but full of information.
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Congressional PublicationsHistorical and current. Limit search to Hearings
House or Senate Action
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CQ Weeklysimilar to a weekly newspaper; details what action was taken, by whom
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CQ Almanac onlinesummary of the Weekly
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Congressional RecordOfficial transcript of who said what in the House and Senate. Actually has more than what they said, since they can ask to insert comments into the Record that they didn't say.
