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Law Reference Sources | Bills

Bills

Most laws start out as bills, which may be amended several times before finally being passed into law. (A law may also arise from a joint resolution, but this is much less common.) An analysis of these changes can shed light on what Congress ultimately hoped to achieve in enacting the law, although the reasoning behind the addition or deletion of a specific provision is not always readily apparent. Bills are also studied by researchers interested in failed or pending legislation. When examining bills as part of a legislative history, keep in mind that multiple bills are often introduced on the same topic, sometimes over the course of more than one session of Congress, even though only one of these bills is eventually passed into law. It is not unusual, for example, for the House of Representatives to pass a bill that is then "approved" by the Senate with the proviso that all of the language of the House bill after the enactment clause be struck and replaced with the wording of a similar Senate bill.

The University of California at Berkeley Library has created this online tutorial showing how to find recent bills in THOMAS.

You may request pre-1981 bills from the Center for Research Libraries using Interlibrary Loan. Include Congress number and bill number in your request.

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