GVPT 473 : Legislatures & Legislation

Instructor: Dr. Eric Uslaner
Librarian: Judy Markowitz

This guide will assist you in locating resources for your GVPT 473 research paper:
All Aspects of a Bill Considered in a Recent Congress.
For additional information, please contact Judy Markowitz, the Government & Politics Librarian, 301-314-1316, judym[@]umd.edu.

Table of Contents

How a Bill Becomes a Law
Glossary
Legislative History Steps
Secondary Sources (Identifying/Choosing a Bill, News, Background Information, Analysis...)
Primary Sources (Legislation and other documents, hearings, reports....)
Roll Call Votes
Public Opinion Sources
Key Players
Research Guides
Citation Guides

How a Bill Becomes a Law

• Government 101: How a Bill Becomes a Law (Project Vote Smart)
  http://www.votesmart.org/resource_govt101_02.php

• The Legislative Process (C-SPAN)
  http://www3.capwiz.com/c-span/issues/basics/?style=legis

Glossary

• Glossary (US Senate)
  http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/b_three_sections_with_teasers/glossary.htm

Legislative History Steps

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Note: All electronic sources without a url noted are Library resources available through Research Port. For remote access (off-campus) use your UM Directory ID and password.

Secondary Sources (Identifying/Choosing a Bill, News, Background Information, Analysis...)

• CQ Weekly
  Weekly legislative news and analysis covering all the major policy issues confronting the U.S. Congress. Full text from 1983 to the present.

• CQ Researcher
  Full-text database that provides comprehensive analysis of topics, including history and background information, relevant pro & con arguments, current status, bibliographies, contact information, and outlooks on upcoming "hot topics" in current events..

• National Journal Group's Policy Central
  Comprehensive full-text searchable collection of resources on U.S. politics and policy, including the National Journal, Hotline, Poll Track, Ad Spotlight, CongressDaily, Technology Daily, and the Almanac of American Politics. All components may be searched at once. Also includes markup reports, public opinion data, and an archive of television campaign ads with streaming audio and video.
  

• Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports Search Engine
  The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is the public policy research arm of the US Congress. This legislative branch agency works exclusively for Members of Congress, their committees and their staffs. It issues about 3,000 briefs, reports, short issue papers and longer position papers per year, but it does not make its reports available to the public. However, it cannot prevent members of Congress from giving them out individually and some government agencies from posting reports they find relevant. Perhaps 1/3 of these reports have become available on the web.
  http://zfacts.com/p/576.html
  Reports from the U.S. Department of State
  http://fpc.state.gov/c18185.htm
  Congressional Research Service Reports, Hosted by UNT Libraries
  http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/

• Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe
  Mostly full-text access to US and international newspapers, journals, wire services, and news transcripts including the Washington Post, New York Times, Roll Call and The Hill.
  Path = News - words/phrase in Headline and Lead Paragraphs - Dates - Results - Show Expanded List. Limit search: genetic discrimination w/10 legislation / focus within results

• Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1945-
  Sessional compilation of articles from CQ Weekly, coverage of actions, votes, presidential statements, and public laws. It includes the annual CQ Vote Studies, significant bills and resolutions, key votes, and roll call votes. McK REF JK1.C66

Primary Sources

• Lexis-Nexis Congressional
  Comprehensive access to US legislative information including legislative histories and the CIS index of congressional publications from 1970 to the present, including congressional hearing testimonies and the Congressional Record. A separate index, less exhaustive, is also available for previous congressional publications (1789-1969). Also includes: "Help Tool Box", "Political News/Hot Topics", "Members" section for biographical information on individual members of Congress, including key votes, floor statements, committee assignments, financial disclosures, and campaign finance information. Check the catalog by SU DOC number (ex: Y1.1/8:110-28/PT.1) for the full-text of reports if not available via the database.

• Thomas
  Library of Congress site with recent legislative history sources. (Inaugurated January 5, 1995, by the Library of Congress at the request of then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich as the portal for “legislative information on the Internet.”)
  http://thomas.loc.gov/

• CQ Congress Collection
  An analytical survey of the history and development; powers; personalities; current developments; and legislation considered and passed by the U.S. Congress. Includes data on voting alignments, interest group ratings, advanced CQ key vote analysis, and advanced member analysis.

• GPO Access: United States Congress
  Recent legislative history sources plus the Congressional Record Index and History of Bills from 1983 forward, and links to committees' and caucuses' home pages.
  http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

• US House of Representatives
  Official site with committee information, bill summaries and status, texts of bills and public laws, roll call votes, and calendars.
  http://clerk.house.gov/

• US Senate
  Official site with calendars and schedules, roll call votes, and floor activity descriptions.
  http://www.senate.gov/

• Congressional Budget Office
  Provides the Congress with analyses needed for economic and budget decisions and with the information and estimates required for the Congressional budget process. Includes full-text online documents such as briefs, letters, studies, reports, technical papers, and testimony.
  http://www.cbo.gov/

• General Accounting Office (GAO) Reports
  The GAO is the audit, evaluation, and investigative arm of Congress and publishes reports, testimony, and legal decisions on a daily basis.
  http://www.gao.gov/audit.htm

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Roll Call Votes

• CQ Weekly
  Click on "Floor Vote Search" - can be searched by bill number, date, or browse by topic. 1983 to the present.

• Thomas Roll Call Votes
  http://thomas.loc.gov/home/rollcallvotes.html

• US House of Representatives
  http://clerk.house.gov/legislative/legvotes.html

• US Senate
  http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_109_1.htm

• C-SPAN Congressional Votes Library
  http://www3.capwiz.com/c-span/dbq/issuesdbq/votesearch.dbq

• Lexis-Nexis Congressional
  Click on "Legislative Histories, Bills, & Laws" - "Keyword Search" and select "Floor Votes."

• CQ Congress Collection
  Key vote analysis.

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Public Opinion Sources

• iPOLL (Roper Center)
  This databank is a comprehensive, up-to-date source for questions asked on U.S. nationwide public opinion surveys since 1935. It provides question wordings, response percentages, and full survey-level citations. RoperExpress, a data access tool for on-demand downloading of data in the Roper Center collection that are in ASCII or SPSS portable formats, is also available.

• Gallup Brain
  Searchable database of the Gallup Poll since 1935 plus "current Gallup Poll News Service articles that feature the latest in-depth poll analyses and replicas of news stories and press releases linked to the surveys."

• National Journal's Policy Central
  Go into "Poll Track."

• Harris Poll. 2005 - present.
  McK Periodical Stacks HM261.A211 (988-2007)
  weekly polls on a wide range of subjects.
  http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/

Key Players

• CQ Politics in America
  Profiles of all the current members of the U.S. Congress. Information includes biographical data, committee assignments, election results, CQ Key Votes, interest group ratings, CQ Vote Studies, and contact information; campaign finance, partisan caucuses, standing committees; detailed descriptions of each member's congressional district as drawn after the 2000 census, including updated maps and voting trends; and the vote for president in each of the House districts.

• Washington Information Directory
  Contact information, descriptions, and organizational charts for over 10,000 federal, congressional, and state government offices, nongovernmental organizations, policy groups, and foundations. Ability to export contact information into letter templates and other formats, and to create your own profile of saved favorite documents, document history, and searches.

• Congressional Quarterly's Congressional Staff Directory.
  Includes information on members, committees, staffs, and biographies.

• Congressional Quarterly's Federal Staff Directory
  Includes information on staff in the White House, executive departments, independent agencies, quasi-official organizations, and biographies.

• Congressional Yellow Book: Who's Who in Congress, Including Committees and Key Staff. New York: Leadership Directories, Inc. McK Ref JK1010.C68. Published quarterly.

• Ness, Immanuel. Encyclopedia of Interest Groups and Lobbyists in the United States. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2000.
  Includes information on group histories, current and future activities, finances, and bibliographies. McK REF JK1118.N47 2000 v. 1-2

• Political Advocacy Groups
  Comprehensive listing of links to U.S. lobbying organizations, arranged by subject area. (Developed by Kathleen Fountain, a librarian at WSU-Vancouver)
  http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/kfountain/

• Political Science Resources: Think Tank Directory
  "Think tanks" are policy research and advocacy organizations which usually have a political slant. This site from the University of Michigan Libraries gives an annotated list of links to think tank home pages. Most think tanks post research and position papers and other documents on the web.
  http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/psthink.html

• U.S. Government Manual
  "As the official handbook of the Federal Government, the United States Government Manual provides comprehensive information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. It also includes information on quasi-official agencies, international organizations in which the United States participates, and boards, commissions, and committees."
  http://www.gpoaccess.gov/gmanual/index.html

• Washington Representatives. Washington, DC: Columbia Books, Inc., 1982 - .
  "A compilation of Washington representatives of major national associations, labor unions, governments, U.S. and foreign companies, registered foreign agents, lobbyists, lawyers, and special interest groups, together with their clients and areas of legislative and regulatory concern." McK REF JK1118.D581 (earlier editions in McK Periodical Stacks)

• Zuckerman, Edward. Almanac of Federal PACs. Hedgesville, WV: Amward Publications, Inc.
  Published every two years. Includes information about every PAC which contributed $50,000 or more to congressional candidates during the election cycles. McK REF JK1991.A744 (earlier editions in McK Periodical Stacks

Research Guides

• Finding Congressional Hearings
  http://www.lib.umd.edu/UMCP/GOV/hearings.html

• Finding Federal Legislative Information
  http://www.lib.umd.edu/GOV/legs.html

• Finding Federal Regulatory Information
  http://www.lib.umd.edu/GOV/regs.html

• Finding U.S. Government Documents in the University of Maryland Libraries
  http://www.lib.umd.edu/UMCP/GOV/basic.html

• Public Policy Research
  http://www.lib.umd.edu/MCK/GUIDES/pubpol.html

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Citation Guides

• Citation Machine http://www.citationmachine.net/

• Citation Guidelines: Assembling a List of Works Cited in Your Paper (Duke University)
  http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/

• Documentation Guidelines: Citing Sources Within Your Paper (Duke University)
  http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/within/

• Brief Guide to Citing Government Publications (University of Memphis)
  http://www.memphis.edu/govpub/citweb.php

• Reading Legal Citations (Boston College Law Library)
  http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/library/meta-elements/pdf/researchguides/citations.pdf

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