Defining Congressional Publications

Tracing legislation requires an understanding of the importance of a variety of congressional publications and the legislative process that creates them. The following is a list of the types of materials which might be part of a legislative history and some background information concerning each type. It is important to remember that the various stages of the process (hearings, reports, etc.) generally take place in both the House and the Senate and that to become a law a bill must be considered in, as well as pass, both bodies.

Congressional publications have a unique identifying system made of three pieces of information which are 1) the number of the Congress; 2) the publication number; and 3) the publication type.

Number of the Congress: Each Congress lasts 2 years and has been numbered since the 1st Congress in 1789. For example, the 100th Congress convened in January 1987 and ended in October 1989. The two years have been divided into two sessions, the first and second, each lasting one year.

Publication Number: Congressional publications are numbered sequentially, beginning with number 1. Each Congress will have a bill numbered H.R. 1 or S. 1. This makes knowing the number of Congress very important to know whether you have the correct "H.R. 1". Bills not acted upon in a Congress are expired and must be re-introduced in the next Congress and will be renumbered in a new sequence.

Publication Type: This is the final critical piece of identifying information. For example, "H.R.1" tells us that this publication is the first bill introduced in the House of Representatives. This is a very different publication from "H.Rept. 104-1", which means that this is House of Representatives Report number 1 from the 104th Congress. It is also different from "S.1", Senate bill number 1; "H.Res. 1", House Resolution number 1; and "H.Con.Res.1", House Concurrent Resolution number 1.