Locating Statutes in Their Original Form
Statutes as passed by a legislature, federal or state, are grouped by subject organization into codes. It is generally these codes to which a researcher turns looking to find the current state of the law. Sometimes, it is necessary to find a statute as it was originally published. A researcher may want to see the original version of the law to see what the law was at a particular time. He or she may wish to compare the original version of the law to the existing version to try and discern something about the legislature's original intent in passing the law.
Federal Law
To locate a particular federal statute in its original form, you must have the year or the Congress number in which it was enacted. When a bill is passed into law, it is first published in pamphlet form called a "slip law" and is given a public law number (Pub. L.). An example would be "Pub. L. 105-304." The "105" denotes that the law was enacted during the 105th Congress. The "304" denotes that it was the 304th law enacted during that Congress. Individual "slip laws" are available on the Library of Congress's Thomas Web site.
At the end of each year, the slip laws are published in bound volumes called the United States Statutes at Large [KF64.A2]. This is the official permanent session law publication for federal laws. Pub. L. 105-304, which is commonly known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, can be found at 112 Stat. 2860, which means volume 112 of the U.S. Statutes at Large at page 2860. If you know the year or the Congress number and the session in which the statute was enacted, you can simply go the appropriate U.S. Statutes at Large volume(s), and you will find the full text of the laws enacted for that year published in numerical order.
Privately published advance session law services exist for federal statutes. Thomson West publishes advance pamphlets with the United States Code Congressional and Administrative News (U.S.C.C.A.N.) [KF48.U5x] and with the United States Code Annotated [KF62.5.W45]. LexisNexis publishes advance pamphlets with the United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.) [KF62.51972.L38]. These advance pamphlets are published more quickly than the government's publication. U.S.C.C.A.N. includes not only the statutes but selective legislative history materials as well.
State Law
Like federal laws, most state laws are published as chronologically. In California, these are called "chaptered bills." They are published officially by the state in pamphlets [Ref Stacks KFC25.A3], and later compiled into annual bound volumes called Statutes and Amendments to the Codes [Ref Stacks KFC25.A213]. Thomson West publishes West's California Legislative Service [Ref Stacks KF30.5.W4], which contains California chapter laws. This is considered to be part of the West's Annotated California Codes. Lexis publishes Deering's California Codes Advance Legislative Service [Ref Stacks KFC30.5 D4], and it is part of Deering's California Codes Annotated. These advance legislative services provide much quicker access to the chapter laws than the official state version.
California chaptered laws can also be found at the California State Senate Web site.
Posted 10 Oct. 2004; rev. 10 Oct. 2007.