Legislative Process

Action:

After debate in either house of Congress the bill is sent to the appropriate committee for review and revisions. Sometimes hearings are held to gather expert testimony, and the committee issues a report with its recommendations. There may also be committee prints--documents for the use of a committee in their work, but not the formal report of the committee. These prints may contain committee rules, revised versions of bills or preliminary reports.

If a committee does not act on a bill it is said to "die" and will not progress further. If approved, the bill will return to the House or Senate for approval.

Sources: 

House Committee Home Pages and Senate Committee Home Pages

Committee home pages are additional sources for current legislative information. They may include hearings, documents, status of legislation under the Committee, information about the structure and affiliation of the committee.

GPO Access, Congressional Reports

Covers 104th Cong.(1995/96) - present

Lexis Nexis Congressional

Covers early 19th century - present. From Advanced Search, see especially these types of documents for this stage of the process:

• Hearings
• Documents and Reports (both House and Senate)
• Committee Prints

THOMAS

Texts of bills from the 103rd Cong.(1993) to present Congress and bill summary status from 1973.

U.S. Congressional Serial Set 

Contains House and Senate Documents and Reports full text from 15th Cong.(1817) - 64th Cong. (1917).