The Arizona Association of Law Libraries recently presented a full day program on Congressional Information that   featured distinguished speakers from the Department of Justice, the Federal Reserve Board, the Sunlight Foundation, GovTrack.us as well as the Arizona State Library and the ASU Law Library.  This blog will cover two of the speaker presentations: The Federal Legislative Process and Finding and Compiling a Congressional Legislative History. Part 2 will feature GovTrack.us and Congressional bill tracking.

Ellen Sweet, Legislative Reference Specialist at the Tax Division, U.S. Department of Justice, led the audience through the legislative process using a federal Indian law (NAGPRA) that included detailed information about the documents produced from the process and which of those documents are the most likely to yield legislative intent information. Excellent flowcharts illustrated the process. Her materials can be found starting at page 37 of the conference materials.

The excellent, up-to-date Finding or Compiling Federal Legislative Histories Electronically was presented by Rick McKinney, the Assistant Law Librarian at the Federal Reserve Board Library. Mr. McKinney’s expertise is the electronic availability of legislative documents and the chart that he included in his materials is a timesaver for anyone who does legislative intent research.

Ms. Sweet and Mr. McKinney are co- authors of the indispensable Law Librarians’ Society of D.C. Legislative Sourcebook 

Need help with a legislative history project? Ask a Librarian!

On April 25, 2013, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) introduced the Phoenix Law Review Victim's Rights Issue Volume 5 during a Congressional hearing on the proposed National Victims' Bill of Rights.  You can view the special edition on HeinOnline.

The Phoenix Law Review members worked on this special edition of the journal related to the new proposed national Victim's Rights Amendment.  The law review board also traveled to Washington last April to attend the first of many hearings on the bill.

Phoenix School of Law's Adjunct Professor Steve Twist worked with the Law Review group on the special edition and arranged for them to meet the Arizona delegation to Congress.

View the hearing here.

(Still of the April 25, 2013 Hearing)

Hope you'll join me in attending this seminar on Friday, April 26th, 2013!

To Register Visit: http://www.aallnet.org/chapter/azll/legal-research-institute.asp

Registration for students is only $50!

Contact Jennifer Mannino at jmannino@risc-llc.com for more information!

**Earn 5 hours CLE credit!**

The case is U.S. V. Windsor.  Do you know the facts?  Read the parties' briefs on WestlawNext.

Brief for Plaintiff-Appellee

Brief for Defendant-Appellant

Also, see many other Amicus Curiae briefs and the Petition for Writ of Certiorari. 

Once logged in to WestlawNext, select "Briefs" from the "All Content" tab on the homepage.

Type the search string "US v. Windsor & DOMA."

How do you think the case will be decided?  What was the legislative intent?

Will they actually reach a decision on the merits - under Equal Protections, 10th Amendment state police power, dismissed for lack of standing?

morguefile.com

 Researching  a topic and want to know what congress has had to say about it? One of the best resources for congressional research is ProQuest Congressional .  Why would you use ProQuest Congressional instead of Westlaw and Lexis? Here are some examples.

Let’s say you are writing your paper on the Indian Court of Offenses and want to cite to the 1926 primary source hearings on that subject…it’s on ProQuest Congressional but not on WL or Lexis.  In fact, ProQuest Congressional has documents that go back to 1789! Maybe you are researching the recent Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 but want some historical perspective on the topic. ProQuest Congressional has hearings and congressional reports that pre-date the passage of the original Violence Against Women Act of 1990.  ProQuest also includes document types not found on WL or Lexis, like maps!  

ProQuest Congressional can be found in the drop-down menu on the Library’s website under Library Databases. 

It’s easy to see what you are searching when you go to the Advanced Search screen:

Questions? Ask a Librarian!