The
Constitution of the United States: Analysis and Interpretation
(S. Doc. 103-6) is an indispensible reference, containing the text
of the constitution, with annotations to court cases interpreting
the constitution, and useful features such as lists of laws held
unconstitutional and unratified proposed amendments.
Cornell Law School has a hypertext version of the Constitution, with links from original provisions to amendments. The plain text of the Constitution is available from the U.S. House of Representatives
The United States Code has all of the Federal Laws in force. You can search the official United States Code, 2000 edition at GPO Access. You can browse or search the fifty titles of the U.S. Code at Cornell Law School's web site, and also check to see if your section has been amended. You can also search the U.S. Code at the U.S. House of Representatives web site.
For more extensive information about federal legislative histories, see our research guide.
For legislative history of bills introduced into Congress after 1969, the best starting place is Congressional Universe. Congressional Universe gives complete legislative histories of Public Laws enacted since 1970, with abstracts (taken from CIS Index and CIS Legislative Histories), and full text legislative files from Lexis/Nexis.
For bills introduced before 1970, Congressional Universe includes citations to committee reports and short abstracts of committee hearings and prints, with lists of witnesses.
Thomas, from the Library of Congress, has the text of bills, with hypertext links to the Congressional Record and committee reports. You can quickly look up hot bills (bills which the Congressional Research Service is watching closely) by name, sponsor, bill number, or subject. Coverage is limited mostly to the 103rd Congress (1993-94) to the present, although there are Bill Tracking Reports for Public Laws from 1973 to the present.
CQ Weekly is the pre-eminent source of news on pending Congressional Action. CQ Weekly is an excellent starting point for tracking major legislation and omnibus appropriations bills. Includes a searchable archive of news stories and roll call votes back to 1983.
Mike Seadle of the University of Michigan School of Information has prepared a Tutorial on federal legislative histories on the web. Twelve brief pages include background on the legislative process, choosing a topic, and each stage, from obtaining the text of bills and hearings to floor debates, laws, and the final regulations. Each page includes descriptions of the sources, call numbers (for U Mich), and hot links as appropriate.
GPO Access has the full text House and Senate Bills and Resolutions, Public Laws, the Congressional Record, Congressional Record Index and History of Bills and Resolutions from 1987 to the present, committee reports, calendars,and more. Documents are available in plain text or PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format.
The House of Representatives web server offers up-to-date information on House floor and committee actions, and a directory of Representatives and House Committees. Committee Home Pages sometimes have the text of prepared testimony from hearings. The U.S. Senate Web server features member and committee information, and some committee home pages have testimony from Senate Committee hearings.