University of
O’Quinn Law Library
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INTRODUCTION
Legislative
history research is as important at the state level as it is at the federal
level.
It
is relatively easy for a researcher to create a legislative history of a
federal law. Most academic law libraries (including the O’Quinn Law Library)
have access to print and electronic resources that contain federal legislative
history documents. For laws passed since the mid 1990s, there is a large amount
of federal legislative history information available for free on the Internet.
It
is more difficult to research legislative history for state laws, including
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THE
In
the
1.
A bill is introduced into the Texas State House of Representatives or the Texas
State Senate.
Documents
Created: Introductory version of
the Bill, Bill Analysis
2.
The legislator introducing the bill (the sponsor) may make remarks concerning
the bill when it is introduced. These remarks are recorded in the House or
Senate Journal.
Document
Created: Remarks recorded in the
House or Senate Journal
3.
The bill is assigned to a congressional committee. The committee holds hearings on the bill in
order to collect information about the bill’s subject matter.
Document
Created: Hearings taped from
1973-present, no transcripts available
4.
The committee considers reports and analysis pertaining to the bill and then
votes on it. The committee may amend or substitute the bill with another bill
during this process.
Documents
Created: Committee reports,
Amendments, Bill Analysis
5.
If the committee recommends the bill, it is sent back to the full House/Senate
to be debated and voted on. The bill may be amended on the floor in order to
make the bill more appealing to legislators.
Documents
Created: Floor Debate, Bill
Analysis, Amendments
6.
The House/Senate votes on the bill. The votes are recorded in the House/Senate
Journal. If the House/Senate passes the bill, the bill is then sent to the
other legislative chamber to be considered. The process is similar in the other
chamber.
Documents
Created: Votes recorded in the
House/Senate Journal, Engrossed Bill
7.
If the other legislative chamber passes an identical version of the bill, the
bill is sent to the Texas Governor to be signed into law.
Document
Created: Enrolled Bill
8.
If the other legislative chamber passes the bill, but makes changes to the text
of the bill in the process, members from both chambers convene a conference
committee to reconcile the differences between the two versions. The conference
committee produces a unified version of the bill and a report explaining the
committee’s actions. The unified version of the bill is then sent to the
Governor to be signed.
Documents
Created: Conference Report, Bill
9.
If the Governor signs the bill, the bill becomes law. If the governor vetoes
the bill it will be returned to the legislature where it will have to receive
2/3 majority of both houses to override the veto. If the governor refuses to
sign the bill it will become law after 10 days unless the legislature is within
10 days of adjournment. In this case the governor would have 20 days to take
action on the bill. After the bill becomes law, the entire text of the law is
published in the General and Special Laws
of the State of Texas (the session laws of the State of
Document
Created: Session Laws published
in the General and Special Laws of
10.
After the bill becomes law, the language of the law is incorporated into the
Texas Codes and Revised Civil Statues. The print version of the Texas Codes and
Revised Civil Statutes is commonly referred to as “
Document
Created:
Law incorporated in the
Keep
in mind that a Fiscal Note and Impact Statement are usually issued when
legislation is proposed and at virtually every major step of the journey that a
bill takes to become law. For more comprehensive information about the Texas
Legislative process, please consult the Texas Legislature’s Web site and the Legislative Reference Library of Texas Web site.
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AVAILABILITY
OF
The
previous section lists the information created during the Texas Legislative
Process. This section reviews if and where that information can be accessed.
1. Bills and
Bill Files
The
bill file will include the various versions of the bills, bill analyses, fiscal
notes, bill history, committee reports, and committee analyses.
(a.) 1993-present:
The
Texas Legislature Online Web site contains bill files for all bills from 1993
forward. The history of the bills is available from 1989 forward.
(b.) 1961-2001:
Microfiche
copies of bills considered by the Texas Legislature from 1973 to 1987 are
accessible at the Texas State Legislative Reference Library in
Legislative Archive System
The
Texas Legislative Reference Library makes scanned bills available online from
1961-2001 on its Web site at http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/lrlhome.cfm. A bill search tool
allows the user to enter the bill or chapter number and immediately connect to
the bill file in the Legislative Archive System. An advance search option
contains a variety of features ranging from searching bill captions for all
legislative sessions to searching by author for certain sessions. The Web site provides
more information about these options at http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/research/billsearch/LASstatus.cfm
(c.) Prior to
1961:
The
Texas State Library and Archives in
2. The House
and Senate Journals
The
House and Senate Journals may include remarks made about the bills by members
of the legislature on the floor of the House and Senate. The journals for each
legislative session include indexes that help researchers to locate references
to their bill in the journals.
The
law library and Anderson Library, the
The
full text of the House and Senate journals since 1995 are available on the
State Legislature’s Web site. Researchers can search the online versions of the
journals for reference to their bills.
3. Committee
Hearing Testimony and Floor Debates
The
House Tapes, 63rd
Legislature (1973-present)
(512) 463-0920 (512) 463-5729 Fax
Senate Tapes, 62nd, 4th
Called Session (1972) - 76th Legislature (1999)
Lorenzo De Zavala
Library and
(512) 463-5455
Senate Tapes, 77th
(2001) - 79th Legislature (2005) (past three sessions only)
(512) 463-0430
Since 2001, both houses
of the
4. Committee
Reports
The
committee reports are included in the bill files. They are advisory reports and
will make a variety of recommendations including passage of the bill, recommend
amendments, or even replace an old version of the bill with a new bill. These
reports include the recommendations of the committee regarding the bill, full
text of the bill, proposed amendments, bill analysis, and fiscal note. See
Section 1, “Bills and Bill Files”, for information about access to the bill
files.
5. Bill
Analysis
The
Bill analysis is a detailed summary of the bill and is arranged in a similar
format as the bill itself. These are included in the bill files. See Section 1
for information on bills and bill files.
6. Fiscal
Note
This is a statement included in the bill file on the anticipated
impact of the proposed legislation on the state’s budget.
7. Impact
Statement
An impact statement will be issued and included in the bill file
when proposed legislation has an impact on actuarial policy, criminal justice
policy, equalized education funding, higher education, imposing court costs on
criminal defendants, open government, economic impact, tax/fee equity note, and
water development policy.
8. Conference
Committee Reports
The
conference committee reports are included in the bill files. See Section 1
“Bills and Bill Files” for information about access to the bill files.
9. The
General and Special Laws of the State of
The
General and Special Laws of the State of
The
General and Special Laws of the State of
10. The
After
a bill is passed into law, it is incorporated in the Texas Codes and Revised Civil
Statues. The Texas Codes and Revised Civil Statutes are available in print in
the library in the Vernon’s Texas Codes
and Revised Civil Statutes Annotated, Texas Collection KFT 1230 et seq.
The
current Texas Codes and Revised Civil Statues are also posted on the Texas
State Legislature’s Web site (http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/).
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STEPS TO
RESEARCHING
Assemble a
1.
Locate the code section in
2.
Locate the chapter number in The General and Special Laws of the Acts of Texas
for your code section. The chapter number is posted at the end of the code
section. If the code section had been amended, it will have more than one
chapter number.
In
the example below, the chapter number for the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure
Art. 46C.151 is Acts of 2005, 79th Legislature, Chapter 831.
Art. 46C.151. DETERMINATION OF SANITY ISSUE BY JURY. (a) In
a case tried to a jury, the issue of the defendant's sanity shall be submitted
to the jury only if the issue is supported by competent evidence. The jury shall determine the issue.
(b) If the issue of the
defendant's sanity is submitted to the jury, the jury shall determine and
specify in the verdict whether the defendant is guilty, not guilty, or not
guilty by reason of insanity.
Added by Acts 2005, 79th
3. Find the bill number for your chapter using
the "Bill-Chapter Cross Reference Table" on the Legislative Reference
Library of Texas Web site http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/. This table provides
the bill number for all laws passed by the Texas State Legislature since 1907.
If your law was passed prior to 1907, locate your law in the General and Special Laws of the State of
Texas. The original bill number for your bill will be included at the top
of the text in the General and Special
Laws. Write down the bill number, as you will need it to continue with your
legislative history research. In the example you would simply choose the 79th
Legislature (regular session) and enter “831” as the chapter number.
4.
Using the bill number, locate the various legislative history documents
discussed in this guide. The cross reference table will allow you to link
directly to the electronic bill file for bills enacted from 1993 until today.
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CONCLUSION
Assembling
a legislative history of a
If
you would like help assembling legislative history, please stop by the
Reference Desk in the library and the reference librarians will be happy to
assist you.
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ADDITIONAL
RESOURCES
(a) Books
with Information about
Researching
•
Chapter 8: Tracking Bills and Compiling
Legislative Histories
•
Authors: Brandon D. Quarles & Matthew C. Cordon
•
Reserve Collection KFT 1275.Q37 2008
•
Chapter 13:
•
Author:
•
Reserve Collection KFT1275.B73 1995
(b) Web Sites
•
Texas State Legislature (http://www.capitol.state.tx.us)
•
Texas Legislative Reference Library (http://www.lrl.state.tx.us)
This
guide was drafted by Peter J. Egler and updated by Christopher Dykes,
Reference/Research Librarian on January 28, 2009..