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How to Find Congressional and Legislative Information: Congressional and Legislative Documents and Publications

This guide provides an overview of how to search for and find Congressional and legislative information.

About Publications

Publications created by Congress and publications about Congress are produced through the course of the federal legislative process. The publication sections below outline the differences between each. The Legislative section at the bottom discusses the types of legislation produced by Congress.

Publications Created by Congress

  • Committee Reports - published reports created by committees in both the House and the Senate that address policies, investigations, and other committee issues.
    • To view a committee report from the U.S. House of Representatives, click here.
  • Committee Prints - internal reports created by committees that give an overview of the committee's activities including their research. Committee prints are not always published, but when they are, they can be found on GovInfo.gov.
    • To view a committee report from the U.S. House of Representatives, click here.
  • Texts of Treaties - agreements between the United States and other nations which are approved by the U.S. Senate.

Publications About Congress

  • The Congressional Record - published each day that Congress is in session and records Congressional proceedings and debates. 
  • Congressional Serial Set - comprised of House and Senate reports and other documents that are published by each session of Congress (i.e, 117th Congress). The Serial Set can be searched on GovInfo.gov, although there is a backlog of digitized uploads. Currently, the Serial Set can be searched up to the 70th Congress (although some documents from the 82nd and the 95th Congresses are also available). The documents in the Serial Set about Congress include House Journals and Senate Journals which detail the official proceedings of each legislative day.

Legislation

Legislative documents are published through Congress.gov and GovInfo.gov and consist of the following:

  • Bills created by the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in all stages of the legislative process.
  • Amendments to bills
  • Resolutions, which are either internal regulations of the chamber in which they originate (like a new regulation in the Senate) or "facts or opinions on non-legislative matters," ("Resolution of Congress," 2021). Not all resolutions are legislative, but many are.

Legal Information Institute. (2021, April). Resolution of Congress. Legal Information Institute.  https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/resolution_of_congress#