Penn State University Libraries - Legislative Proposals : Bill Text

Bills can be introduced only by a member of Congress. Once introduced, they are assigned a bill number which can be used to trace activity on that bill throughout the legislative process -- until it is signed into law and receives a Public Law number. Bills are numbered consecutively as introduced in both the House and Senate. (HR.1, HR.2, S.1, S.2, etc.) Numbering begins again at the start of each new congress (every two years).

Locate the bill number and use this information to locate any bill text versions and their status in the legislative process, any relevant debate and floor statements, and any voting records.

Bills may go through several bill versions before being passed. It is frequently useful to track the changes in bill text versions in order to see what changes are being made and by whom. When introduced into Congress, every bill is assigned a unique bill number that is used to track the legislative process for each individual bill.

• ProQuest Congressional [Penn State Libraries] (available to researchers with a Penn State Access Account)
  Provides bill text, bill tracking (status and locators) for bills from 1989 to the present. It also includes the full text of The Congressional Record from 1985 to the present.

• THOMAS (Library of Congress)
  Provides bill text, status, and locators for all House and Senate bills since 1993.

• GPO (Government Printing Office)
  Provides the full text of bills, resolutions, public laws. Full text of bills is available from 1993 to the present; public laws from 1995 to the present.