The purpose of this document is to describe the basic steps in the legislative process, and suggest print sources in the Pritzker Legal Research Center, Lexis and Westlaw, or Internet sites for the text of legislative documents. This guide incorporates links to the web sites mentioned in the text. Compiling legislative history involves following the steps in the process by which a bill becomes a law, and examining the documents created during this process. Legislative history is sometimes used by courts to find legislative intent if a statute is vague or ambiguous.
Legislative history is considered only persuasive legal authority.
Courts consider the legislative history of a statute if there is some doubt about the meaning of specific language, or the intent behind the law. If the text of an act contradicts a statement in the legislative history, the statutory language controls. A member of the Senate or the House of Representatives introduces a bill. The bill is assigned a unique identifying number, which it retains through both sessions of Congress. Each session is one year.