Research Guides: Legislative History Research: Federal Government Sources

Congressional Research Service (CRS)

The CRS, a division of the Library of Congress, provides policy and legal analysis to representatives and senators in Congress. CRS reports are renown for authoritative, objective, and non-partisan research but are not directly released to the public. CRS reports are available in several online collections including:

CRS from Congress.gov
As of 2018, all CRS reports that are not a matter of national security will be released to the public. Thank you, librarians!
Federation of American Scientists
FAS was founded in 1945 by many of the Manhattan Project scientists who wanted to prevent nuclear war. Updated monthly.
University of North Texas CRSR Collection
UNT digital collection of CRS Reports boasts a robust number of entries on various topics and is updated constantly.

Gateways and Portals

USA.gov
Main portal to find and access government information on both the state and federal levels. This is a good place to start for anyone looking for current information.
OneSearch
Brandeis' catalog contains many government reports and journals and includes links to online publications. For best results, include "Government Printing Office" "GPO" or "Government Publishing Office" for publisher in Advanced Search.
Science.gov
Searches over 60 databases and over 2200 selected websites from 15 federal agencies, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information including research and development results.

3 Branches of the Government

Federal Congressional Sources

ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
Access to congressional publications, hearings, debates, committee prints, CRS reports, legislative histories, bills, current laws, and regulations. Presently includes the full texts of hearings from 1824-2023, House & Senate Reports (Serial Set 1 & 2) from 1789-2003, CRS reports from 1916-2003, committee prints from 1830-2022, historical Congressional Record (debates) from 1789-1997 as well as the current Daily Congressional Record (debates) from 1985 to present, the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations.
U.S. Congressional Serial Set (HeinOnline) This link opens in a new window
Includes House and Senate Documents, House and Senate Reports, the American State Papers, and much more. This ongoing project in HeinOnline will be released in phases and will soon contain complete coverage of the Serial Set. The Serial Set is indexed from inception to date and contains comprehensive full-text coverage from 1978-date.
HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Digital repository of the immense collections of many universities and institutions, full text searchable.
Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text news, business, industry and legal information from major newspapers and magazines.

Congress.gov
Up-to-date access to legislative information.

Digital National Security Archive This link opens in a new window
Includes more than 60,000 of the most important declassified documents regarding critical U.S. policy decisions post WWII.