POLS 315 Online Syllabus
Resource Guide to Congress and Districts
home
| Contents | |
| Get | Guides to laws / programs / agencies arranged by function |
| Get | Guides to laws / programs / agencies arranged by name |
| Get | Federal statutes |
| Get | Legislative histories |
| Get | Presidential actions |
| Get | Rules, regulations and other bureaucratic lawmaking |
| Get | Bureaucratic / agency publications in print form and from the Internet |
| Get | Administrative law -- what courts do in bureaucratic processes |
| Get | Recap -- picking up the paper trail in UIUC libraries |
| Get | Introductions to |
| Get | General Internet sources about politics |
| Get | Pencek's tips for doing political analysis of laws and agencies |
This guide is designed for browsing. That is, we have tried to arrange sections and items in each section in a rough sequence of use (or usefulness) for typical research projects about the legislative background and legal basis of government agencies and programs, though "your mileage may vary" because of the peculiarities of your topic. Primary-source materials come before ones that have been edited or otherwise modified -- for example, the unedited United States Code immediately precedes the US Code Annotated -- because the course assignments underlying this guide emphasize confronting raw political materials.
For consistency, and to track the order of assignments, we have tended to cluster online sources near the end of each section -- which is not to suggest that they are not important sources. But in our experience, it is easier to work efficiently online after you have gotten familiar with similar print materials first. Note that the federal government is "migrating" its publications to electronic formats: recent materials may be available only over the World Wide Web (which is dreadfully slow at times), some will be available on the Web, on CD-ROM, and/or paper of microform. And for your research to have any historical depth, you will have to use print and microform sources. If you have trouble finding the sources you need, talk over your search with a Government Documents librarian.
Each printed source listed here includes at least one call number: a Superintendent of Documents ("SuDoc") number, a Dewey Decimal call number for items in the UIUC collection, and/or sometimes a Library of Congress call number, in case you use the library of the
This guide is designed to "work" in both online and paper format, suitable for taking into the stacks or branches or for as a one-stop-shopping point for online information. You may find it handy to print out this guide in its entirety or to make your own guide by cutting and pasting pieces from it (and other sources you find useful) into a word processor or personal web page.
QUICK-SEARCH TIP: use [CTRL]-F to find keywords in this guide.
These are the first places to browse; the chances are, if something here piques your curiosity, it will be interesting enough to pursue. However, don't expect the information to be sufficient for a term paper.
"Subject Bibliographies". Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. The Government Printing Office publishes short, topical guides to materials it publishes. These are not exhaustive; their coverage does not extend to the more specialized or scholarly materials available from the GPO (to say nothing of things published by other parts of the national government). The "Subject Bibliography" pamphlets are good for getting a sense of what agencies do what with/to/about an issue -- an eye on the nature and relation of the agencies as well as the issue. The online version gives both annotations and links to the relevant agency documents.
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. A valuable guide to the projects the national government gives money or other assistance to. (Don't be misled by the title: "domestic" means inside the country, not inside the household; "assistance" means any kind of benefit or subsidy, not simply welfare "as we know it.") Contains program descriptions, criteria for getting some of the money, and sources for further information.
Congressional Research Service Index. The CRS does background research on various topics for members of Congress. Search this index to see what sorts of things members thought were important, as well as to see what considera tions entered their bill drafting and debate.
"Regulation Home Page" The Heritage Foundation. Sponsored by a conservative "think tank," so you can expect an anti-regulatory slant here, but this site includes governmental sources as well as partisan ones that identify controversial policies, agencies, and regulations that give you a place to start your project. If you're inclined to agree with the site's interpretation, you ought to compare the original documents rather than merely take their word for it. If you're inclined to be hostile, you should be inspired to find original-source materials that refute them.
CataLaw. A nice place to estimate how extensive the law-related materials on a topic are before you commit to it. Comprehensive website has a section of "legal topics" that group together other sites, some going directly to relevant statutes, others to secondary literature. The topical pages include cross references to other topics, lists of "focused sites" devoted to the topic, and links to the relevant portions of "the usual suspects" (described as "all major catalogs of law and government available on the Internet.") Topical pages arrange links alphabetically by country, so look for "United States" toward the end of each page.
US Postal Service WINGS began as a gateway to federal and state government information, originally to be made available at information kiosks in post offices and other public places. The breakdown of government functions uses rather broad categories, oriented to consumer needs rather than those of researchers. Includes links to state governments and non-governmental sites.
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US government overviews: browse by agency nameSometimes you'll hear about a law in the context of the agency (or agencies) that implement it. Among other things, looking at an agency will lead you to other laws and other agencies that might be more interesting.
US Government Manual. Washington, DC: Office of the Federal Register. Annual almanac and directory of the agencies in all branches of the federal government as well as certain boards, committees, and commissions, including lists of significant personnel, addresses, and phone numbers. Cites congressional or executive authority for each agency's establishment and major responsibilities. Agency descriptions are produced by the agencies themselves, so they can be self-serving.
Villanova University's "Federal Web Locator"
explicitly follows the structure of the US Government Manual, though it can be frustrating, especially if you're not too familiar with the print version. To look thereLouisiana State University Libraries' "Federal Agencies Page" is yet another list of agencies, by branch, then name:
US Postal Service WINGS gives access to federal agencies both within the hierarchy (for examble, the Department of the Army is shown as a part of the larger Department of Defense) and also alphabetically.
Federal Regulatory Directory, 6th ed. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1994. Describes regulatory processes (Part I), extensively profiles selected federal agencies (Part II) and briefly profiles many others (Part III). Handy information, including their histories, statutory bases, missions, biographies of key personnel, addresses and telephone numbers for further information. Includes subject index.
Washington Information Directory. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly. Annual digest of the addresses and stated purposes of government agencies and private organizations (e.g., interest groups, lobbying groups, nonprofit associations, think tanks). Handy source for speculating on who might have been involved how in the crafting of legislation and regulations.
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Print sources are physically easier to read and take notes from, and sometimes they are easier to browse, but they will be more or less out of date about electronic sources, often about what's available online and sometimes about the technology of finding it.
A Research Guide to Congress: How to Make Congress Work for You, 2d ed. Judith Manion, Joseph Meringolo, and Robert Oaks. Washington, DC: Legi-Slate, 1991. Extremely useful, concise walk-through of the documents produced at every stage of the legislative process. Good discussion of quirks and problems in making sense of matters. Overflows with examples and illustrations, including a model legislative history of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 that linking events with their documentation.
Congress and Law-Making: Researching the Legislative Process, 2d ed. Robert U. Goehlert and Fenton S. Martin. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 1989. Very accessible guide to doing the things you'll do in these assignments. Starts with a detailed description of each step in the current legislative process and the documents generated at each stage. Then come user-oriented guides to finding federal legislation, regulations generated by federal agencies, secondary sources, with special treatment for budgeting, campaigns and elections, and foreign affairs and treaties. Also includes a handy guide to correct citation form for these various documents.
Finding Government Information on the Internet : a How-to-do-it Manual. John Maxymuk, ed. New York : Neal-Schuman, 1995. This title is what the title says it is, but its Web addresses and discussion of technology were dated by the time it got into print.
Michigan State MSOLAR service (formerly Swarthmore College SCHOLAR service). An interesting online attempt to walk you through legal and political research, along the lines of what librarians call "the reference interview."
"Electronic Resources for the Practice of Alternative Dispute Resolution"
Wayne State University Library's very brief comparison of techniques for using the World Wide Web to satisfy your information needs, with special emphasis on finding US government publications by title, agency, subject, or keyword, along with some useful starting points for each strategy.[Return to table of contents]
Tapping the Government Grapevine, 2d ed. Judith Schiek Robinson. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1993. A concise, conversational introduction to finding information in the government information maze, written for both the lay person and the librarian who is not a government-information specialist. Especially useful for its numerous boxes comparing different information sources and for many illustrations that will help you decode government materials when you encounter the real thing. This is a book worth keeping by your side as you work with US government publications. Note: this book is the main textbook for the UIUC Library School's course in government publications, so copies might be available for purchase.
Introduction to United States Government Information Sources, 5th ed. Joe Morehead and Mary Fetzer. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1996. Excellent introduction on how to use government publications and how to trace legislation, regulations, etc. -- a librarian's "bible" in this field. Includes capsule descriptions of government agencies, their statutory bases, and publications by and about them. Describes both processes followed by the various parts of the US government and the difficulties of researching them. Indexed by author, title/series, and subject.
Using Government Information Sources: Print and Electronic, 2d ed. Jean L. Sears and Marilyn K. Moody. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1994. Excellent discussion of search strategies, other directories to information, and specific sources of data, including statistical information. (Updates the following title, which see.)
Using Government Publications. Jean L. Sears and Marilyn K. Moody. 2 vols. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1985. Though outdated regarding many particular publications, this user-friendly guide to finding and using government-produced materials is still useful, especially for planning how you'll use them. Both volumes have introductory chapters on search strategies and the basics of government publications. Chapters are organized by search strategy appropriate to that topic or source, checklists of gen eral information sources and of narrower ones (with overview discussions and one-sentence descriptions of each title), checklists of indexes and databases (now out of date), related materials in Using Government Publications, and bibliographies published by the US Government Printing Office. Vol. 1, Searching by Subjects and Agencies, has chapters on finding publications relating to topical areas (e.g., taxes, elections, agriculture, among others) as well as by the kinds of agency and agency processes. Vol. 2, Finding Statistics and Using Special Techniques, directs you to statistical reports by topical areas (e.g., income, crime, energy) and by kinds of searches (e.g., legislative history, budget analysis, treaties).
The Complete Guide to Citing Government Information Resources, rev. ed. Diane L. Garner and Diane H. Smith. Bethesda, MD: Congressional Information Service, 1993. Guide to deciphering US document citations and to citing information found in government publications.
You'd better be able to cite your electronic sources appropriately if you're going to pull information off the World Wide Web. Unfortunately, formats haven't guite standardized yet. Use one authorized by your instructor. (The American Political Science Association (APSA) has a style manual that is used by mot political science journals, but that format has not been updated to account for electronic sources. It is very like the Chicago Manual's "author-date reference style.") APA and MLA style manuals for online sources are available. Whatever you do, be consistent.
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Your main concern for these assignments will be with federal statutes and regulations. Most handbooks to legal research address those topics in the context of case law, the interpretation by courts of judicial decisions as well as statutes and rules. The guides listed here are designed for lay readers; there are many books devoted to legal research written for law students and lawyers.
Find the Law in the Library: A Guide to Legal Research. John Corbin. Chicago: American Library Association, 1989. Readable, topical, practical-problem-centered guide, with good overviews and lengthy bibliographies of legal resources.
Legal Research: How to Find and Understand the Law, 3d national ed. Stephen Elias and Susan Levinkind. Berkeley: Nolo, 1992. An ordinary-language handbook for legal research, directed at laymen who want to settle common ordinary legal disputes without using lawyers.
'Lectric Law Library Lawcopedia. A very peculiar set of online texts and links, offering a relatively straightforward lexicon of legal terms and a topical list of links to statutes, Internet discussions, interest groups, and the like. You should confirm and flesh out what you find here with more straitlaced materials.
Index to Legal Periodicals and Books. Indexes more than 700 English-language journals in the field of law, as well as yearbooks and monographs since 1994, in the general format of the ubiquitous Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Each volume includes a subject and author index, table of cases and current book review index.
Guide to American Law: Everyone's Legal Encyclopedia. St. Paul: West, 1983- . Very handy encyclopedia, delivering on what the title promises. Includes a yearbook and annual supplements. Since this is an encyclopedia, you should think of it as a source of background knowledge for your research. (Legal professionals look in American Jurisprudence and Corpus Juris, discussed later, for more detailed, authoritative discussions in legalese of doctrine and leading cases.)
Cornell University Legal Information Institute
. Very complete and sophisticated site reachable by gopher or a Web browser. Hypertext access to most Supreme Court opinions and to lower-court cases in selected fields, including administrative law. Also has extensive links to the US government's own gopher sites.Directories list categories of legal subjects.
Dictionaries
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The US Constitution declares that, after itself, the statutes validly enacted by Congress are the "supreme law of the land." It is no overstatement to say that most American national politics revolves around getting statutes made, changed, and/or interpreted to suit the views and interests of many, many political "players." Before you can make sense of a legislative history or analyze the politicking behind a law or agency, you have to find the law proper.
US Statutes at Large. Washington: US Government Printing Office. Provides an annual chronological arrangement of the complete text of public and private bills passed by Congress and signed into law. "Public Laws" (abbreviated P.L.__-___) are initially printed in "slip law" format before being cumulated in bound "Stat." volumes. Best source for making historical comparisons of changes in laws, policies, agencies; refer to the Statutes at Large when using the legislative history materials discussed later in this guide.
United States Code. Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1934-. USC is a consolidation of "all the general and permanent laws of the United States" in force at the time of publication, arranged under 50 subjects or "titles." Because a statute when passed may touch on several topics already in the laws of the United States, it is cut-and-pasted into thematic groups with pieces of other statutes; a piece of a statute passed in 1996 may be next to a piece of one passed in 1896 and another from one passed in 1796. There are annual supplements to keep the US Code up to date and a new edition every six years (which the library keeps, so you can make historical comparisons). Has "popular names" and general subject index. While the Statutes at Large lend themselves to figuring out what Congress was thinking at the time of enactment, USC is the baseline for predicting the actions of agencies and the people trying to influence them. See also US Code Annotated, below. Note that USC does not include appropriations, private laws (ie, those intended to affect one or a few people or groups), legislation for the Dictrict of Columbia, nor commemorative legislation.
US Code Annotated. St. Paul: West. USCA is an annotated, commercially published version of the US Code. It is much more convenient to use. Annotations are from court decisions that interpret various sections of the Code, giving a sort of digest account of what the laws mean. USCA is cross-referenced through West Publishing Co.'s topical "Keynote" system to the company's judicial decision series. "Pocket parts" in the back of each volume keep the set up to date. The entire set is revised more frequently than USC. Index volumes include popular names of laws as well as subject-matter entries.
GPO Access. GPO Access is a very powerful device from the US Government Printing Office for searching the histories and contents of United States laws and the regulations created pursuant to them; links to GPO Access and its "enhanced" versions at some universities abound in this guide.
Digest of Public General Bills and Resolutions. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service. Washington: US Government Printing Office. Provides summaries of the important features of public bills and resolutions. Usually published five times in each congressional session with biweekly supplements as needed. There is a final edition at the end of each session.
US Code Congressional & Administrative News. St. Paul: West. Like the previous title, this series prints the texts of bills signed into law and also includes selected legislative histories, committee reports, and executive orders that are often difficult to obtain or that would require laborious searching through the government documents collection.
CCH Congressional Index. Chicago: Commerce Clearing House. Lists and indexes all public bills and resolutions of general interest and reports their progress from introduction to final disposition. Combines House and Senate indexes by subject or author of bill. This loose-leaf service is updated weekly, so the "status tables" for bills are very up-to-date. Probably the best place in print to go for identifying less known current proposed legislation and its status. But CIS/Index is easier to use ... and read.
Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report. Good source for confirming your hunches about who would want a law to be written and implemented one way versus others. This is an excellent weekly magazine that provides comprehensive coverage of current congressional events, but also includes information of the other branches of national government. January issues offer such useful annual "scores" of congressional activities as attendance, party unity, presidential support, and key votes. The CQ Weekly Report has provided, since 1975, ratings of House and Senate members prepared by the several national interest groups. The indexes (subject, with special indexes for lobbyist registrations, presidential texts, committee roll call votes, am ong others) are very complete, conveniently printed on conspicuous yellow paper.
National Journal. A weekly newsmagazine of US government events; wide range of subjects and features; fewer statistics and more qualitative analyses than the slightly more scholarly Congressional Quarterly. Not surprisingly, it gives more attention to events off Capitol Hill than the older CQ. Standard reading for Washington "Insiders."
Roll Call. Gossipy and opinionated news and analysis, emphasizing Capitol Hill affairs, for even-further-insiders. Includes "policy briefings" by members of Congress, "news scoops," and a "Hill Directory" for members of each chamber. Sometimes, this sort of recent, day-to-day news coverage and profiling of political "players" can give an insight into their motives, goals, friends, and adversaries at earlier times and/or on different issues. Unfortunately, the "Roll Call Files" do not go back very far nor very completely, so you'll have to check in regularly and keep track of what you find.
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After you have taken a crack at reading a statute and made some hunches about who probably wanted/did what, you'll want to look for confirmation, starting with the materials generated in the legislative process itself. You may have to look online, at paper copies, and microfiche to find relevant bills and reports.
Remember, electronic databases are fast and powerful, but they lack
historical depth, and access to them may be restricted. (Eg, you can search Legi-Slate
(covering to 1979-80) only from UIUC Government Documents Library workstations, and CIS Congressional
Universe (covering, more or less, only to 1969) is available only through UIUC
computers.) [Incidentally, Congressional Universe was recently renamed Congressional
Universe, though you'll hear the old name more than the new.] You'll need paper
finding aids for all pre-1969 legislative history and for reviewing the state of the law
that post-1969 congressional activity may have changed.
A Research Guide to Congress: How to Make Congress Work for You, 2d ed. Judith Manion, Joseph Meringolo, and Robert Oaks. Washington, DC: Legi-Slate, 1991. Extremely useful, concise walk-through of the documents produced at every stage of the legislative process. Good discussion of quirks and problems in making sense of matters. Overflows with examples and illustrations, including a model legislative history of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 that links events with their documentation.
Congressional Practice and Procedure: A Reference, Research and Legislative Guide. Charles Tiefer. New York: Greenwood, 1989. Exhaustive discussion of the ins and outs of the rules (and exceptions) both chambers of Congres s use for operating their respective chambers and doing the work of legislation and oversight. Extensive table of contents and index make this volume very handy for considering why a bill worked its way through congress one way rather than another, and for decoding the procedural language you'll encounter in speeches, debates, and hearings.
"Congressional Mega Site". Compiled by the Library of Congress. Annotated list of quality websites dealing with Congress and politics.
Congressional Research Service reports on legislative processes. Online versions of more than three dozen reports by Congress's own research arm, addressing more stages in the legislative process than most people even heard of.
For a fine guide to doing legislative history, emphasizing currently available (ie, recent) online resources, see the University of Michigan Library's online Documents Center. (But note that one of the services discussed there, Legi-Slate [click here for background info], is available at UIUC only in the Government Documents library, and another, Lexis-Nexis [click here for background info], is available only to people in the UIUC Law and Library Schools.)
Confused?
If in surfing the Web you simply forget the steps of the congressional legislative process, each of which is likely to contribute to a paper trail, refresh your memory at[Return to table of contents]
These resources will help you identify and locate relevant congressional publications. Products from "CIS," the (private) Congressional Information Service, include very handy abstracts (summaries), which are much more useful than keyword searching in electronic courses for understanding the nature of a document and judging its relevance.
CIS Index to Congressional Publications and Legislative Histories. Bethesda, MD: Congressional Information Service. CIS /Index is an annual three-part service (index, legislative history, abstracts) on major acts of Congress, beginning in 1970. Contains brief abstracts of committee hearings, committee "prints," House and Senate documents, reports, and miscellaneous publications, including some executive documents. The testimony of every witness at every hearing is summarized in brief but sharply descriptive abstracts. Start with the index volume, which utilizes every conceivable access point -- from witness names and affiliations to the numbers and popular names of pending bills. Then find the legislative history entries for a list of the bills, documents and reports that went into making that statute, then use the abstract volume for summaries of the documents and reports, which you can then chase down in complete form in microfiche and often paper copies. Has cumulative, multi-year indexes. For pre-1970 information arranged the same way, see CIS's Serial Set Index, Congressional Committee Prints Index, and Congressional Committee Hearings Index.
Shepard's Acts and Cases by Popular Names, Federal and State, 2d edition. Colorado Springs, CO: Shepard's Citations, 1979, plus Supplements. An alphabetical index to federal and state acts and court cases, cited by the names you'd see in the press or textbooks.
Digest of Public General Bills and Resolutions. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service. Washington: US Government Printing Office. As you should guess from the title, this publication provides summaries of the basic features of public bills and resolutions during the legislative session. Includes legislative histories, report numbers; indexed by sponsor and by subject. Library has since 1987.
Library of Congress Information System (LOCIS).
Among the 26 million records in the Library of Congress online catalog that can now be accessed via the Internet are congressional bills and resolutions introduced since 1973. Not as friendly but much more complete than THOMAS.Major Legislation of the Congress. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service. Washington: US Government Printing Office. Briefly summarizes major legislation before the Congress, arranged by broad topic. Each summary contains analyses and descriptions of major legislation related to the issue. Published each month Congress is in session. Don't overlook these, including the older ones, if you're curious about how a question got on the national "policy agenda" or how public perception of public problems and their solutions may have changed over time.
Guide to the Records of the United States Senate at the National Archives, 1789-1989, and Guide to the Records of the United States House of Representatives at the National Archives, 1789-1989. National Archives and Records Administration. Washington: US Government Printing Office. These volumes describe the histories and jurisdictions of the committees of each chamber, present descriptions and citations to their varied papers and reports, and offer various how-to tips to researchers. Volumes include glossaries, bibliographies, and tables of dates. Some libraries catalog these as part of the Serials Set (described below).
US Serial Set Index. Bethesda, MD: Congressional Information Service. Government "Documents" and "Reports" comprise most of the collection known as the "Serial Set." (The serials themselves, on microfiche, are in Docs microfiche area.) The "Reports" are issued by congressional committees and deal with proposed legislation or contain findings on matters under investigation. As determined by Congress, the "Documents" included are reports of executive departments and agencies, presidential messages, and material on a wide range of topics. The exact contents of the Serials Set have varied over the years, so that now they are mostly records of Congress and materials from executive agencies that Congress has ordered. This index covers from the first "American State Papers" up to 1969. After that year, use the CIS/Index or Congressional Universe to identify and retrieve reports, documents, and committee prints. It is often easiest to approach the Serial Set if you go into it already knowing roughly when the congressional action accurred.
Popular Names of US Government Reports. Library of Congress. Washington: US Government Printing Office. Index to congressional committee reports that are better known by popular titles than by the committee name (eg, "Brownlow Reports" rather than the four reports cataloged under "United States. President's Committee on Administrative Management..." in 1937).
US Congressional Committee Prints Index: From the Earliest Publications Through 1969. Bethesda, MD: Congressional Information Service, 1980. Committee "prints" are the background information for congressional committees' deliberations. Many prints are not available to depository libraries. Sometimes a committee print will be revised and issued as a document or report in the Serial Set (see above). For materials after 1969 you should use the CIS/Index to identify committee prints.
US Congressional Committee Hearings Index: 1833-1969. Bethesda, MD: Congressional Information Service. Self-explanatory title; same format as the other CIS indexes listed in this guide. CIS/Index CIS/Index and Congressional Universe take over after 1969.
Unpublished US Senate Committee Hearings, 18th-88th Congress: 1823-1964 and Unpublished US House of Representatives Committee Hearings, 18th-88th Congress: 1823-1964. Bethesda, MD: Congressional Information Service. Self-explanatory title; same format as the other CIS indexes listed in this guide.
Legi-Slate. Produced by a subsidary of the Washington Post Company. Legi-Slate is a very powerful system for retrieving full-text of the Federal Register, congressional documents including congressional bills, legislative histories, and the Congressional Record, news services including the Washington Post, and program transcripts to the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and others. Coverage to 1979-80. Because the number of users is very restricted, in this guide we emphasize other ways of finding the same materials, but Legi-Slate is a primary tool for the professional political researcher.
CIS Congressional Universe. (lately renamed Congressional Universe). Consolidates the materials in the CIS print titles discussed throughout this guide. You can track publications, legislation, regulations, members of both chambers, and news. Has powerful search capabilities, even including an optional "controlled vocabulary" -- sort of like a traditional back-of-the-book index -- so that you can choose search terms that are most likely to coincide with ones in the legislative paper trail. Search pages include instructions and tips, and there are help pages as well. Accessible only through UIUC computer "domains."
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Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents. Office of the Federal Register. Washington: US Government Printing Office. This series presents the texts of presidential speeches and remarks (including campaign speeches and debates), announcements, bill signings, veto messages, communications to Congress, executive orders and proclamations, interviews with the news media, and various other tidbits issued by the White House.
Public Papers of the Presidents. Office of the Federal Register. Washington: US Government Printing Office. Annual collection of speeches and documents, arranged chronologically, with topical appendices on orders, nominations, and the like. Beginning with the Carter administration (1977-81), the Public Papers series has included all the items in the Weekly Compilation.
Codification of Presidential Proclamations and Executive Orders. Office of the Federal Register. Washington: US Government Printing Office. As the name suggests, this is a topically arranged collection of presidential orders, covering April 1945-January 1989. (For later orders, see Title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which is shelved next to this Codification.)
Budget of the United States Government: Fiscal Year ____. Executive Office of the President. Washington: US Government Printing Office. The President's annual budget message is issued every January and presents the administration's recommendations to Congress about national priorities, in both qualitative and quantitative form. Often, these recommendations are treated by Congress as "dead on arrival," so that the final appropriations for that fiscal year will be quite different. But the historical data in the Budget are real, so you can track down how much was actually spent on what. Appendices allow you to track recommended funding by program type and agency.
CIS Index to Executive Branch Documents, 1789-1909. Bethesda, MD: Congressional Information Service, 1990. For historical research. Organized like the other CIS indexes: subject, name, Superintendent of Documents number, document title, agency report number. Documents are available in full text on microfiche.
Some executive branch materials
will also be available in the Congressional Record, US Code and Administrative News, and, for historical research, US Serial Set Index described elsewhere in this guide. Online, try enhanced versions of GPO Access, THOMAS, or FedWorld, described elsewhere in this guide.[Return to table of contents]
Executive departments and agencies created by Congress promulgate rules and to carry out their statutory mandates. Many also hand out subsidies, benefits (such as licenses), and punishments and thus have to decide whether person A or company B deserves one or the other. For most practical purposes, we can say that the agencies make law, even though they are unelected and frequently unknown to most people. Publication is a way to inform the public and promote accountability. Agency regulations are subject to test in the courts or before panels within the agency designated to hear cases. If the agency makes a quasi-judicial decision about the application of its rules to specific instances, it publishes its decision as a court would.
Federal Register. Office of the Federal Register. Washington: US Government Printing Office. In a process called "notice and comment," federal agencies publish their proposed actions and in the Federal Register so that interested people and organizations can comment on them; these comments are then taken into account (in greater or lesser degrees) by the agency, which must publish its final action or rule here as well. The Register also includes executive orders, proclamations and other presidential documents. Monthly, quarterly and annual indexes. Daily issues are compiled annually in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).
"Unified Agenda (Semiannual Regulatory Agenda)" is a semiannual part of the Federal Register describing agencies' regulatory actions agencies are developing or have recently completed. The agendas are published in the Federal Register, usually during April and October each year, as part of the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.
Code of Federal Regulations. Office of the Federal Register. Washington: US Government Printing Office. This is a codification of the general and permanent rules issued by executive and independent agencies of the federal government, including presidential orders and proclamations. (The CFR is divided into 50 "titles," each addressing a broad area subject to federal regulation. While its organizing principle is like that of the US Code, do not expect to find strict parallels between "titles" of USC and the similarly numbered ones of CFR.) Separate index volumes. CFR has its own index volumes, but the CIS Index to the Code of Federal Regulations, shelved next to the CFR, is more useful. Because regulation is an ongoing process, parts of the CFR may be out of date by the time you look there, so you must consult the accompanying List of Sections Affected, which will refer you to the appropriate statement in the Federal Register.
The Federal Register: What It is and How to Use It. Robert Fox and Ernie Sowada, eds. Office of the Federal Register. Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1992. Self-explanatory title: how to make sense of the often-confusing Federal Register and CFR. Includes explanation of how to solve a sample research problem.
Online guides to administrative law
CIS Federal Register Index. Washington: Congressional Information Service, 1984-. More useful than the CFR's own indexes, in the standard, user-friendly CIS format.
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Federal agencies publish so much and so many kinds of materials that the US Government Printing Office may be the world's largest publisher (and it doesn't even print all the US government's publications). These materials range from magazines and public-relations puffery to technical papers and research journals to how-to guides to reports on current and proposed public policy. What an agency publishes, for whom, when, in what format, can suggest how it relates to various constituencies, the White House, and Congress.
Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications. Washington: US Government Printing Office. "MoCat" is the most comprehensive listing of federal publications, though it does not list government-sponsored technical reports nor government-produced magazines, and there will always be "fugitive" documents that federal agencies put out that don't get into it. Furthermore, the library may receive a copy of a publication weeks before that same item gets listed in the Monthly Catalog. Each monthly issue lists publications issued that month: for a complete list of what that agency has ever announced in "MoCat," or for everything published under a particular title, you must look either in many separate print volumes or use a computerized service. "MoCat" has monthly, semiannual and annual indexes.
Government Information Locator Service (GILS)
is a recent project designed "to identify, locate, and describe publicly available federal information resources, including electronic information resources." The goal is to give a single point of access to all agencies, though so far not all have connected. Searchable rather than browsable, so you'll need to have come up first with at least a set of probably-relevant search terms.CIS Index to Congressional Publications and Legislative Histories. Bethesda, MD: Congressional Information Service. CIS/Index, yet again? This time, you can use it to keep track of agency officials dealing with congressional "oversight" functions: who's the boss? Who's allied with whom? CIS/Index this service offers brief abstracts, with full references, of the following types of congressional publications: committee hearings, committee "prints," House and Senate documents, reports, and miscellaneous publications, and some executive reports and documents. The testimony of every witness at every hearing is summarized in brief but sharply descriptive abstracts. Start with the index volume and then go to abstracts volume. There are cumulative indexes covering four-year blocks since 1970.
General Accounting Office Reports
. The mirror of the president's Office of Management and Budget, the GAO is Congress's watchdog in the oversight process. It has not been entirely nonpartisan, especially when different parties control Capitol Hill and the White House. GAO reports can be evidence both of the behavior of executive agencies and at the same time suggest the political atmosphere behind the GAO investigation.American Statistics Index. Bethesda, MD: Congressional Information Service. ASI identifies, describes, and evaluates all of the major statistical publications of the US government -- more than 500 sources. How does an agency measure the gravity of the need for its services or the grandeur of its vital services to the national interest? Statistics. There is a wealth of material in ASI, including some of the most unlikely subjects. Start with index volumes (accessed by subject, name, category, title, or report number) and then use the abstracts volumes to get a better sense of the substance of the report, then read the full publication on microfiche (cased near entrance to Docs). See also next title.
Congressional Research Service Index. The CRS does background research on various topics for members of Congress. Search this index to see what sorts of things members thought were important, as well as to see what considerations entered their bill drafting and debate.
Public Affairs Information Service Bulletin (PAIS). New York: PAIS. Twice-monthly index to selected international, federal and state documents, some congressional documents, as well as to periodical articles and books, relating to political, economic and social conditions, public administration, and international affairs. PAISCovers many periodicals, even mimeographed materials, not indexed elsewhere. Has separate subject-headings volume.
US Government Periodicals Index. A sort of counterpart to the familiar Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, it indexes magazines published by the US government. These articles will not necessarily be critical of the agencies that publish the magazines, but they can be useful evidence for assessing how they want to be regarded by important constituencies and allies. Successor to the Index to Government Periodicals (below) from the ubiquitous Congressional Information Service.
Index to US Government Periodicals. Chicago: Infordata. During the 1980s, this service gave indexed pproximately 180 magazines published by thye US government. Succeeded by the CIS US Government Periodicals Index
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The federal government is rapidly "migrating" its publications to electronic formats such as CD-ROM and the Internet. Appropriately, a lot of libraries have produced electronic guides to those electronic publications. It pays to try different routes to the same source if you can't make a connection the first time; most of these sources link to the others. You'll want to set up a "bookmark [or favorites]" file for your web browser.
Government Information on the Internet. Greg R. Notess. Lanham, MD: Bernan, 1997. The most thoguthful and complete print guide to finding federal, state, and international information on the 'Net. Arranged by topics, including "featured sites" for each, and extensive indexes and a convenient list of "primary federal web sites" on the inside back cover. Identifies sponsoring agency, primary and alternative ways for getting to the information, and description and assessment of the site, and -- very useful for relating online materials to print ones in the library -- subject headings and, when the same documents are available in print and online, the SuDoc numbers.
How to Access the Federal Government on the Internet. Bruce Maxwell. Washington: Congressional Quarterly, annual. Also arranged into broad categories, this guide is good for telling you how to make the connection with the online information, but its choice of agency sites to discuss may not coincide with your need, and it does not help you relate online documents to the wealth of print sources.
Government Online. Max Lent. New York: Harper Perennial, 1995. Consumer oriented and dated enough that it might be more useful for its historical value and a mirror of government use of the Internet, but useful in arranging its discussions to parallel the structure of the US government, and it gives an extensive to state and local government and to non-governmental sources.
University of Nevada, Reno, Business and Government Information Center gives topical access to federal online resources. The links are clustered by broad subject, though they lack explanatory notes. The "Federal Government Information" page includes useful "Website Evaluations" buttons after most clusters, which link to two-column tabular summaries of the content and "user-friendliness" of the sites listed. (Unfortunately, exploiting these evaluations pages take some practice -- it is not obvious what will happen when you click one link versus another.) These complement the tips and explanations in the "Buck Stops Here" site that follows in this list.
"US Government and Politics: The Buck Stops Here,"
Mansfield University of Pennsylvania. A favorite, by Larry Schankman. This site is packed with good descriptions of it many links to sources in US government and politics -- and with user-friendly instructions on how to use some of the powerful ones like GPO Access, and Thomas and LOCIS at the Library of Congress.DocLaw WWW at Washburn University.
Convenient tabular arrangement and some neat, clickable organizational charts.University of Michigan Documents Center
. This site sets the standard: if there's an electronic version of a government publication available on the Net, it's listed here. But the comprehensiveness can be overwhelming."Uncle Sam,"
the Government Publications Department at the University of Memphis. A pleasantly chatty -- even humorous -- site, with nice descriptions of resources and some useful "how-to" information. Lots of geographical information and access to Tennessee state materials. Sort of a cross between Larry Schankman's page and Michigan's.Government Documents at Yale.
An elegant, comprehensive site.Villanova University's "Federal Web Locator"
will take you to agency websites, which may reveal what an agency thinks is important, beyond what it says in more traditional media such as print. Of course, you have to know the agency name to use the name-search option.[Return to table of contents]
Lawsuits and threats of lawsuits are a major part of the politics of public administration, especially in the case of agencies to which Congress has delegated lots of discretionary policy-making power. So if your agency or law leaves lots of "wiggle room," you should consult case law to see how affected interests and judges have dealt with it. Consulting case law can also reveal ideas, statutes, regulations, agencies, and people that have actually related to your topic but that you might have missed.
Cases are disputes about legally recognized rights and duties that are settled in court. All appellate cases and some trial-court cases are printed in "reporters." Most reporters are published in several cross-referenced series by the West Publishing Company, which also produces "digests" highlighting and cross-referencing points of law. (Remember: US courts interpret and apply federal law, state courts deal with the laws of their respective states. See descriptions at the Administrative Office of the United States Courts website, http://www.uscourts.gov/UFC99.pdf )
For picking a general topic, it is often easiest to search the cases, reference works, and secondary literature relating to the US Supreme Court. But for tracing the politics of an agency or regulation as affected interests wrestle to get courts to read the regulations their way, it will be more fruitful to start with the lower courts (usually the federal circuit courts of appeal, which hear appeals from agency action).
Shepard's Acts and Cases by Popular Names, Federal and State, 2d edition. Colorado Springs, CO: Shepard's Citations, 1979, plus Supplements. If you don't already know the formal name or citation to a notable judicial opinion, you might find hit here under the common name used in, say, press reports.
General legal online gateways give access to federal and state cases, secondary literature, statutes, regulations, and the like.
Cornell University Legal Information Institute. Very complete and sophisticated site reachable by gopher or a Web browser. Hypertext access to most Supreme Court opinions and to lower-court cases in selected fields, including administrative law. Also has extensive links to the US government's own gopher sites.
Index to Legal Periodicals and Books. Indexes more than 700 English-language journals in the field of law, as well as yearbooks and monographs since 1994, in the general format of the ubiquitous Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Each volume includes a subject and author index, table of cases and current book review index.
Federal Supplement. St. Paul, MN: West. The US district courts are the trial courts, where most cases under federal law begin. Most federal trial court opinions are very rarely published (it's up to the judge); those that are will be found in Fed. Supp. and selectively in some commercially produced reporters.
Federal Reporter. St. Paul, MN: West. The eleven federal courts of appeal and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia hear appeals from federal administrative agencies in geographically defined areas as well as from the federal district courts and the special federal courts The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has national jurisdiction over specific types of cases, generally dealing with administrative decisions . Most of the circuit corts' opinions are reported in this series.
United States Reports. United States Supreme Court. Washington: US Government Printing Office, annual. Customarily abbreviated in legal citations simply as US, preceded by a volume number and followed by the first page of the opinion, this is the official publication of decisions of the US Supreme Court. Reports of judicial opinions are issued in three stages: (1) individual "slip opinions"; (2) preliminary print edition in paperback; and (3) the final cumulative bound volume, which is issued annually.
US Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition (customarily abbreviated "L.Ed."), Rochester, NY: Lawyers' Cooperative Publishing, and US Supreme Court Reporter ("S.Ct."), St. Paul, MN: West. L.Ed. and S.Ct. are unofficial, commercial editions reprinting (and supplementing) the contents of the official United States Reports. They add editorial comment on the pertinent points of law and are usually published sooner than the U.S. Reports. Both have subject indexes. While L.Ed. and its continuation, L.Ed. 2d, and S.Ct. are cross-referenced to the official Supreme Court reporter, volume numbering and pagination differ in all three reporters. So while legal research may be easier with these series, you must always cite to U.S. Reports as well as to whichever commercially produced version you used.
US Law Week. Washington: Bureau of National Affairs. This timely loose-leaf service has four sections: (1) opinions of the US Supreme Court; (2) summaries of selected federal and state court decisions; (3) summaries and analysis of recent statutes; (4) journal of proceedings of the Supreme Court. Decisions are received by the publisher within several days of being handed down by the Supreme Court. Excellent indexes.(Website is merely an extended ad.)
Shepard's US Citations. Colorado Springs, CO: Shepard's Citations, 1943-, plus supplements. The primary purpose of a citator is to inform you of legislative or judicial actions that may have modified the points of law made in a particular case. Before you try "Shepardizing," looks at some legal research handbooks, such as Elias and Levinkind, Lega Research, discussed above. In a pinch, try the Supreme Court case indexes to US Law Week and the Index to Legal Periodicals or the topical indexes to American Jurisprudence and Corpus Juris.
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These sources are listed in the order corresponding to their creation in the policy-making process.
Bills are given numbers when they are introduced, and knowing the numbers is important for tracing the history of legislation or policy.
Congressional Hearings are held to gather information for legislative and oversight, as well as to publicize issues and members.
Identify hearings via
These will generally refer you to Docs fiches.
Docs hearings card catalog covers hearings in the stacks, 1885-1979; it is arranged by Congress, chamber, committee, and title.
Legi-Slate and Congressional Universe (Congressional Universe) give full-text retrieval, but with restricted access and limited historical coverage.
Committee Prints are special research reports as background for legislation. These can provide current, historical, and/or statistical analyses of events, issues, or policies
Prints can be identified via
and found in Docs fiches.
Legi-Slate and Congressional Universe (Congressional Universe) give full-text retrieval, but with restricted access and limited historical coverage.
Committee reports (including conference committee reports) include texts of bills (which may have been amended) along with the evidence and reasoning the committee used. Almost always, a committee will report out only bills it recommends for passage.
Reports can be identified via
and found in Docs fiches.
Legi-Slate and Congressional Universe (Congressional Universe) give full-text retrieval, but with restricted access and limited historical coverage.
House and Senate floor debates are reported in the Congressional Record. Washington: US Government Printing Office. This is the daily stenographic record (sort of...) of the proceedings of Congress from the 43rd Congress, 1873, to date. Also includes annual messages of the president to Congress, the presidential inaugural address, and speeches and other matter not actually spoken to Congress but which members have inserted anyway "for the record." Texts of bills and resolutions are not usually reported in the Congressional Record. Before you plunge into the debates, look at the Daily Digest section of each issue, where you can find summaries of committee as well as floor actions and (on the last day of the week) agendas of the following week. A biweekly index covers the daily issues, an annual index get you into the official, annual version of the Record. (The pagination differs between the daily and the annual, so be use you use the appropriate index for the version you want.) The biweekly index includes a section on the "History of Bills and Resolutions." For 1954- 1967 the appendices to the Congressional Record were not included in the permanent edition, but are available separately.
Votes. Roll call votes are recorded in various places, with different degrees of comprehensiveness and historical depth
Signing or veto mesages, other communications with Congress and the nation are published in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents and, depending on their nature, the Federal Register.
Then they are published in Public Papers of the Presidents.
Agencies publish proposed actions (whether regulations or quasi-judicial hearings) in the daily Federal Register.
Twice a year, they must publish a "Unified Agenda (Semiannual Regulatory Agenda)," describing regulatory actions they are developing or have recently completed. The agendas are published in the Federal Register, usually during April and October each year, as part of the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.
Final versions of general and permanent rules, along with presidential orders and proclamations, are codified and published in the Code of Federal Regulations.
And many of an agency's other publications will be indexed in the Monthly Catalog of Government Publications.
Most challenges to federal agency rulings or rule-making will be made in the US Courts of Appeal (sometimes called the circuit courts), either in the regional circuit where the agency action occurred or in the District of Columbia Circuit. Moreover, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit hears appeals from specialized federal trial courts and a few others, generally dealing with administration. Court opinions are published in the Federal Reporter
If the Supreme Court decides to accept the case, it (and some commercial publishers) will publish its opinions in
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Throughout, this guide has listed electronic addresses for government and government-related sources online. The Net is so dynamic that no list can be complete. Here, however, are some sites offering many links that political science students have used fruitfully. This list does not include links to the many online newspapers, magazines, or "current awareness" sources you can find on the Net. As you look at news reports on the Web, some of which is reputable, some fraudulent, always remember: "consider the source."
Poly-Cy. From the political scientists at the University of West Virginia, a site that is both large and well organized, even includes political science humor.
LSU political science site.
An extremely large, pretty well organized collection of resources from Louisiana State University.University of Michigan Documents Center.
More from the good folks in Ann Arbor.Political Resources Webpage at the University of Keele
. A British site with good links on American politics and various political science subfields, as well as links to political documents and data from the rest of the world.CQ's American Voter '96 Hot List.
General access to political news and information about American politics, from Congressional Quarterly, Inc., with a breezy, sardonic tone. Many interesting links, but not updated since spring 1997:American Political Science Association
. Sponsored by this country's chief scholarly organization in the study of politics, so it includes access points to subjects other than American politics and law. The APSA website is good for information about the APSA but not about politics or government.1. Starting points -- Overviews of U.S. government laws and agencies
2. General guides to administrative and legal research:
3. Where / how to find statutes: the acts of Congress
4. Legislative histories: what went into the statutes
5. Executive orders and other exercises of presidential authority
6. Federal agency rule- and decision-making
7. Bureaucratic documentation: burrowing through what government agencies publish
8. Administrative law as what judges say it is.
9. Digest recapitulation of the legislative paper trail (parts 3-8, above) as you'll find it in UIUC libraries.
10. General Internet sources about politics, American politics and policy
11. Pencek's suggestions for politically analyzing government agencies and reading between the lines of legal materials.
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Link to Professor Sala's Political Science 315: Legislatures
and Legislation course home page
top
University of Illinois Libraries
University of IllinoisThe guide was created by Bruce Pencek (pencek@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu) as part of a study of techniques integrating library instruction into the curriculum. He will be graduated from the MS/LIS program of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 1998. Pencek was formerly a member of the political science and public administration faculties of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, among other institutions. His PhD is from Cornell University, where he began developing this bibliography and set of topics, based on his work with Theodore J. Lowi.
This guide is copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998 by Bruce Pencek. Permission is granted for nonprofit, educational distribution, provided that this file remain intact, including this statement.