GovDocs Training: Congress
6.21.06
Congress
Congressional Section of UNT Law Tutorial
Congresspedia
U.S. Congress, Quick Reference
Congressional Leadership
- in each body, there is a majority and minority leader
- Senate Leadership
- House Leadership Offices
- Speaker of the House (member of majority party)
- also a majority and minority whip
- make sure that as a whole, the party votes as the party leadership wants
- whip sites can be sources for CRS reports (can't always access them, but can get report title and number, sometimes dates)
- Whip Pack (sometimes contains CRS reports)
- held when a bill is passed in both bodies, but as different versions
- House of Representatives and Senate must reconcile their two differing versions of the bill
engrossed = sent from the originating body to the other body
enrolled = sent to the President
When signing a bill, the President can include a signing statement.
A 2/3 majority in both bodies is needed to override a veto.
Congress: Agencies
- GPO
- GAO
- audits
- produce multiple reports daily
- CBO
Congress is not subject to FOIA (Freedom of Information Act)
(only the executive branch is subject to FOIA)
Resources for Congressional Information
SuDoc: Congress = X, Y
Y4's = congressional hearings
- keyword search (no "and" needed)
- can get bills in full-text (usually pdf and html)
- good place to search if you have the bill title or number
- abbreviations
- IS = introduced in the Senate
- IHR = introduced in the House of Representatives
- RS = reported to the Senate
- (and so on)
- bill summary & statutes section
- sponsor(s)
- latest action
- all actions
- CR = Congressional Record
- this could include hearing, debate, roll call, votes
- can also search just the CR (by keyword, member name, etc.)
- "search multiple Congresses" by keyword
- can browse (for instance, browse by "public law")
- bill also links to the text of the law it became (if it was signed into law)
- also gives the law number
- separate section on appropriations legislation
- Schedules & Calendars
- tell when S / HR are in session
- items placed on calendar for a vote
- floor schedule is for debates
- committee meeting schedule -- "schedule" means that it has been scheduled, but not necessarily that the meeting will/did occur on that date
Find Your Representative
If you're searching for legislative intent, good sources are:
- house report
- congressional record introduction, debate
To find out how your member of Congress voted on a bill:
- THOMAS "roll call votes"
- click "all Congressional actions"
- there will be a link for "Roll no.#" (if applicable)
- this will list the votes
- can see who didn't vote -- click on "NV"
Statutes at Large (print)
- look at "a moment in time" of the law
- it doesn't reference changes to laws made; simply lists them historically as they were signed
- once signed in, the law is put into the Statutes at Large
- two locations in our stacks:
- AE 2.111: ...
- GS 4.111: ...
- ordered chronologically as they were signed into law
US Code (print)
- current (not historical) look at the law
- includes recently updated versions of laws
- GP 3.22/2:197/ (for 2000)
- also available online
Searching for a Hearing on a Certain Topic
- CIS (Congressional Information Service) Annual
- abstract, index, legislative history
- will have citation, some have SuDocs
- can find by name of person testifying in hearing
- Serial Set has reports, but not hearings
- our catalog contains hearing titles
- may have links to those hearings online
- links are external: "government online resource"
Examples of Congressional Hearings
- have table of contents
- some have indexes
- sometimes contain copyrighted material (such as articles)
- this can make digitization a sticky issue
- sometimes contain transcripts of the hearing
- covers all three branches of government
- by comparison, THOMAS covers only the legislative branch
- easier to use browse than the search function
- citing full-text material on GPO Access can be problematic; no page numbers
- pdf versions should have page numbers
- present on the GPO site
- better represented on the GAO site
- some restricted access (for instance, some related to the Brady Act)
General
- needs "and" in keyword search
- don't need to search with plurals; these are automatically included
- can search by number or by SuDoc
- some full-text; 1994-95+ = more online, but not comprehensive
- lists different versions of bill
- more specific ways to search
- current members of Congress only
- links to their bio
- bios include some staff names and phone numbers
Some Print Resources
With some items, it's easier to Google them to find out if they are depository library items, and if so, then locate them on our floor. Not all our items are in the catalog.
Information on Government Agencies
- FirstGov browse arranged by topic
- US Government Manual (print)
- agencies from all three branches
- directory
- organizational charts
- Congressional Directory (print)
- only legislative branch
- directory
Congressional Directory (print)
- index of member names
- table of contents arranged by committee name
- all past issues kept on third floor, Y 4.P 93/1:1
Back "Y" Shelf (our stacks, print)
- Congressional Directory
- Serial Set (microcard)
- American State Papers
- a kind of pre-serial set reports
Congressional Record Titles (print)
(in chronological order)
- Journal of Continental Congress
- Annals of Congress
- Congressional Globe
- Congressional Record (current title)
judicial branch is the least represented (in depository libraries)
Back to GovDocs Notes & Training
Back to the Front Page
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.