These committee reports appear in the Journals. Most reports are noteworthy only for their brevity and lack of substantive comment. Some do contain more useful information, however, and for this reason they should be reviewed. When the House and Senate cannot agree on specific language in a bill, the conference committee attempts to reconcile the differences. The conference report then may contain explanations of these differences and reasoning behind the compromise language.
Many bills become law without having gone through a conference committee, however.
Since the mid-1970's, House committee meetings have been recorded on audiotapes. The Governor may influence how a law is implemented and perceived through the use of an approval statement, amendatory veto, or veto message. Thorough researchers should check both the session laws and the journals. Gubernatorial vetoes of bills that are not overridden by the General Assembly may be informative if a similar bill is introduced in the following session. If the official sources described above are inconclusive orinsufficient, the researcher may find secondary sources useful.