Library Guides: U.S. Government : Legislative Branch: U.S. Congress

U.S. Congress

The Legislative Branch of the United States Government (U.S. Congress) is composed of two chambers: the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives.

The Legislative Process: Overview (Video)
Videos (with transcripts) of the steps in the legislative process.
The House Explained
Learn about how the House of Representatives works.
The Idea of the Senate
Learn about the U.S. Senate's history and traditions as well as its rules and procedures.
The Legislative Process
U.S. House of Representatives guide to how laws are made.
Rules & Procedures
U.S. Senate guide to how laws are made.
How our Laws are Made
Library of Congress guide to the legislative process.
LLSDC's Legislative Source Book [Law Librarians' Society of Washington, DC]
An extensive list of links to research guides and other resources for legislative histories and congressional publications.

Congressional This link opens in a new window
Use this Libraries' database to find information about Congress and the legislative process.
Congressional provides access to the best web resources for congressional and legislative information. This includes services available to Penn State Users only, such as Congressional Universe (1789-to date) as well as other free services that provide similar or related information such as Thomas (1993-to date) and GPO Access (1993-to date). The Guided Tour provides a step-by-step approach to congressional and legislative information for users who have never done research of this type before. Updates:Continuous

ProQuest Congressional Guides
Instructional guides by ProQuest to help use this database effectively.

Legislative Insight This link opens in a new window
Use this Libraries' database to find digital full-text publications created by Congress during the process leading up to the enactment of U.S. Public Laws.
Proquest Legislative Insight is a legislative history service offering full-text PDF versions of publications generated by the United States Congress during the legislative process from 1929 to the present. The publications include the full text of the Public Law, all versions of related bills, law-specific Congressional Record excerpts, committee hearings, reports, and prints. Also included are Presidential signing statements, CRS reports, and miscellaneous congressional publications.