The Library of Congress
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Bills, Resolutions
Search Bill Text for Current Congress
About: This home page feature searches the text of legislation for the current Congress by word/phrase or bill number. This is a “quick and dirty” search for those who do not want the advanced features found on the Advanced Bill Text Search page.
Coverage: Current Congress
Source: Library of Congress
Access Now: THOMAS home page
Search Bill Summary & Status
About: Bill Summary & Status contains information about bills and amendments. The summary and status information includes: sponsor(s); cosponsor(s); official, short and popular titles; floor/executive actions; detailed legislative history; Congressional Record page references; bill summary; committees of referral; reporting and origin; subcommittees of referral; links to other committee information provided by the House of Representatives; amendment descriptions (and text, when available); subjects (indexing terms assigned to each bill); a link to the full text versions and if the bill has been enacted into law, a link to the full text of the law on the Government Printing Office Web site (in both text and .PDF formats).
For laws having received the line-item veto in the 105th Congress, links to the text of cancellation notices and links to any disapproval bills are given. NOTE: Not all information is available in the earlier Congresses.
Bill Summary & Status information is searchable by word/phrase, subject (index) term, bill/amendment number, stage in the legislative process, dates of introduction, sponsor/cosponsor and committee. Lists of all legislation, public laws, private laws, vetoed bills and bills/amendments sponsored/cosponsored by each member during each Congress are also available
Coverage: 93rd (1973) through current Congress
Source: Library of Congress
Access Now: Search Bill Summary & Status
Search Multiple Congresses
About: The full text of bills can be searched across multiple Congresses.
Coverage: 101st (1989) through current Congress
Source: Library of Congress
Access Now: Search Multiple Congresses
Search Bill Text or Bill Summary & Status for Previous Congresses
About: The Bill Text and Bill Summary & Status features both contain the ability to search previous Congresses. Users can select a Congress from the menu on the search pages.
Public Laws by Law Number
About: This feature contains Bill Summary & Status records for each bill that became public law. Laws are listed both by law number order and in bill number sequence (House Joint Resolutions, House Bills, Senate Joint Resolutions, Senate Bills).
Coverage: 93rd (1973) through current Congress. The text of Public Laws is available from the 101st Congress to the present.
Source: Library of Congress
Access Now: Public Laws
House Roll Call Votes
About: Roll call votes are recorded votes, in this case, from the House of Representatives. Votes are listed in reverse chronological order by roll call vote number. The vote summary page lists roll call vote number, vote date, the “issue” (bill/amendment number being voted on, quorum call or Journal approval), the “question” (description of the vote), the result (Passed, Failed, or Agreed to) and the title/description of the legislation. Detailed vote pages show individual member votes and vote totals by party.
Coverage: 101st Congress, 2nd session (1990) through current Congress
Source: House of Representatives
Access Now: House Roll Call Votes
Senate Roll Call Votes
About: Roll call votes are recorded votes, in this case, from the Senate. Votes are listed in reverse chronological order by roll call vote number. Votes are divided into three groups: Senate Roll Call Votes Taken Today; Senate Roll Call Votes Taken This Week and Senate Roll Call Vote Tables, Current and Prior Congresses. For Senate Roll Call Votes Taken Today, the results of roll call votes are generally posted approximately one hour after they are announced by the presiding officer of the Senate. The vote summary page lists roll call vote number, vote date, bill number (when applicable), vote result and title/description of vote. Vote detail pages show individual member votes ordered alphabetically by member, ordered by vote category (yeas, nays, not voting and “presents") and votes summaries (total for each of these vote categories). In addition to votes on legislative business—bills/amendments, procedural matters (motions, etc.)—Senate votes on nominations and treaties are shown (executive business).
Coverage: 101st Congress, 1st session through current Congress (1989 - present)
Source: Senate
Access Now: Senate Roll Call Votes
Browse Legislation by Sponsor
About: From the THOMAS home page legislation can be browsed by sponsor (senator or representative) for the current Congress. Legislation sponsored by a particular member or members can be found for previous Congresses using the Advanced Bill Summary & Status search.
Coverage: 93rd (1973) through current Congress
Source: Library of Congress
Access Now: Current Congress
Activity in Congress
Yesterday in Congress
About: Provides a list of floor activity for the previous legislative day. What is a legislative day?
Coverage: Previous legislative day
Source: Library of Congress
Access Now: Yesterday in Congress
House Floor Now
About: Floor actions occurring in the House on the current legislative day all listed in reverse chronological order. Procedural actions (motions), votes, speeches and debates are noted. File is updated continuously throughout the day—at approximately 15-minute intervals. If the House is not currently in session, the information that appears is from the last or most recent legislative day. Measures under consideration are linked to their THOMAS Bill Summary & Status record.
Coverage: Current legislative day of the current Congress.
Source: Clerk of the House of Representatives
Access Now: House Floor Now
Congressional Record
Congressional Record Latest Daily Digest
About: The Daily Digest is a summary of a day’s activities in both chambers of Congress. Congressional Record page citations in the digest are linked to the full text of the record; bill numbers in the digest are linked to the full text of the bill.
Coverage: One legislative day
Source: Library of Congress
Access Now: Latest Daily Digest
Search the Congressional Record
About: The full text of the Congressional Record can be searched by word/phrase, member of Congress and/or date or date range. Searches by member name retrieve debates/speeches during which a certain member of Congress spoke, his/her remarks inserted in the Record in the Extensions of Remarks section or return articles with mention of his/her name in other contexts ( e.g., Congressional Record notice of additional sponsors added to a bill). You can search the entire record or limit your searches by section of the record (House, Senate, Extensions of Remarks, Daily Digest), by date or date range and/or member name. A list of daily issues divided by section (House, Senate, Extensions of Remarks, and Daily Digest) is also available. Each section is preceded by a clickable Table of Contents for that section. Keywords in the Congressional Record Index can be browsed along with how many times each word occurs in the database and how many documents contain that word. Links to the Congressional Record Index for each session of that Congress are included.
Coverage: 101st (1989) through current Congress
Some Congressional Record documents in the 101st and 102nd Congresses are not available on THOMAS. Among the documents missing in the 101st are:
All the documents for November 13, 1989.
Conference reports for H.R.7, H.R.1465, H.R.996, H.R.2939, H.R.3072, H.R.3614, H.R.5114, H.R.5399, H.R.5769, S.580, S.1939, S.2740.
Among the documents missing in the 102nd are:
Conference reports for H.Con.Res . 287, H.R.2038, H.R.2508, H.R.2519, H.R.2608, H.R.5006, H.R.5487.
Source: Library of Congress
Access Now: Search the Congressional Record
Congressional Record Index
About: The Congressional Record Index is an index to the daily editions of the Congressional Record prepared by staff of the Joint Committee on Printing. The Index can be searched and browsed by keyword. Page references for index terms (topics) and bill numbers are linked to the Congressional Record full text. Links to searches for major topics—those most commonly searched—are provided.
Coverage: Current Congress through 104th Congress; cumulative for each session; published every 2 weeks.
Source: Library of Congress
Access Now: Congressional Record Index
Schedules, Calendars
Days-in-Session Calendars
About: Days-in-Session Calendars show the days the House and Senate met. The House Calendars report the total legislative days and the total number of calendar days the House met. The Senate Calendars show the scheduled non-legislative-period days. This information is presented in a monthly calendar format, so rare weekend sessions can be spotted immediately. The calendars can be browsed, but not searched.
Coverage: Senate: 95th Congress, 2nd Session (1978) through current Congress. House: 94th Congress, 1st Session (1995) through current Congress.
Source: Library of Congress
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House Floor This Week
About: The “House Floor This Week” provides the date and time of the House session, along with bills that are likely to be passed under suspension of the rules or expected to receive floor action. This feature is updated throughout the week when the House is in session. Measures for possible consideration are linked to their THOMAS Bill Summary & Status record.
Coverage: Current Congress. Includes measures likely to be considered on the House floor this week.
Source: House of Representatives
Access Now: House Floor This Week
Committee Information
Search Committee Reports
About: Committee Reports include the full text of House and Senate committee reports (including conference reports and joint committee reports) printed by the Government Printing Office (GPO). Most committee reports are printed by GPO. Reports can be searched by word/phrase, report number, bill number and committee. Searches can be limited by type of report (House, Senate, Conference, Joint). Reports can be browsed sequentially by House/Senate committee report number, conference report and joint committee report.
Coverage: 104th (1995) through current Congress
Source: Library of Congress
Access Now: Search Committee Reports
Presidential Nominations
Search Presidential Nominations
About: Information provided about Presidential Nominations includes the Presidential Nomination number, the date the nomination was received the committee to which it has been referred, legislative actions, and the nominee(s). New information is added to the database once a day and is available early the next morning.
Coverage: 100th Congress (1987) through current Congress
Source: Library of Congress
Access Now: Search Presidential Nominations
Treaties
About: Information provided about Treaties includes treaty number, the date the treaty was transmitted, short title, formal title, treaty type, legislative actions and index terms. New information is added throughout the day by the executive clerk of the Senate. It becomes available early the next morning. This feature does not contain the actual text of the treaty itself. The full text of treaties can be searched at GPO Access.
Coverage: 90th (1967) through current Congress. Complete coverage begins with the 94th Congress. Older treaties are included if they were pending in 1975 when the database was created.
Source: Library of Congress
Access Now: Search Treaties
Government Resources
THOMAS contains a list of legislative and other government resources. THOMAS also provides resources for learning about the legislative process and resources for legislative researchers.
For Teachers
THOMAS resources for teachers include classroom activities, lesson plans, guides to congressional information, and more.
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