Are you trying to decipher and understand a complicated or ambiguous federal law? HeinOnline is the legal research tool for you. Members of the Law Library Association have 24/7 remote access to HeinOnline. HeinOnline has a database called the U.S. Federal Legislative History Library. This database includes the texts of the final public laws, the House and Senate bill variations, the records of Congressional hearings, and the House and Senate reports. HeinOnline has several tools to help you learn to navigate and search this database. HeinOnline support has videos showing you how to locate a legislative history. HeinOnline has also created a Lib Guide which provides resources ranging from a guide through the federal legislation enactment process, a how-to on using legislative history as a tool to interpret the law, and advice on searching the legislative history database.
Other ways to learn about federal legislation: the Law Library of Congress also provides seminars on researching legislative history a few times a year. You can go to their Legal Webinars webpage for the Law Library of Congress Legal Research Institute to sign up for their upcoming July 11, 2024, webinar entitled “Federal Legislative History.”