SOURCES OF MICHIGAN LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

On the federal level, there are a number of popular sources for locating legislative history, including the United States Code Congressional and Administrative News, Congressional Digest, Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, Congressional Index, and Congressional Record . In Michigan, as in most states, background materials on legislation are rarely compiled in a central repository. This is due to a number of factors, including the expense involved and the relatively small number of users of such information.

By looking at a number of diverse sources, however, one may be able to obtain some very useful background information on a bill. A review of proposed and adopted amendments, arguments for and against, and individual viewpoints on a piece of legislation may lend some insight into the reasons behind the passage of a bill. By tracking the progress of a bill, especially proposed changes and the arguments for proposing or rejecting these changes, the researcher may be able to learn something about the specific purpose or purposes for which a bill was passed.

From introduction to enactment, a bill goes through the various steps of the legislative process to ensure that each bill is adequately reviewed before it becomes law. The legislative process consists of a number of stages allowing for the study, review, and debate of proposed legislation. This includes input from private citizens, public agencies, and representatives of private interest groups at committee hearings, as well as from legislators during committee hearings and floor debates. This aggregate testimony and debate, both written and oral, contribute to the final form a piece of legislation takes.

To locate and trace a bill through the various steps of the legislative process, the researcher can use the indexes of the House and Senate Journals for the year a law was enacted. It may also be necessary to check either the preceding or subsequent year's journals, since a bill can take up to two years to progress through the biennial meetings of each legislature. Using the Bill and Joint Resolution Index and/or the General Index for each house's journals, one can find the number of the bill in question. The journals also contain a table of acts and bill numbers, allowing a person to find a bill's number by checking it against the public act number. With the bill number, one can use another part of the journals, the Bill Histories, to track the specific days on which a bill was officially acted upon, what the action was, and the outcome of the action. This bill history section of the index will reference the House or Senate Journal for the day on which the action took place and the number of the page of the journal on which the action is recorded.

Prior to the publication of each session's journals in bound volumes, paper copies are printed for each daily session of the House and Senate. These daily journals are usually available on the day following each session and can be obtained or accessed at the Legislative Document Room, the User Services Division of the Library of Michigan, and the State Law Library.

To review a law or an amendment to a law made in a previous session of the legislature, you can reference a number of sources. If the act number and year are already known, the researcher may consult either of two sources containing the laws for each year's session. The Public and Local Acts of the Legislature of the State of Michigan, published by the Legislative Service Bureau, is an annual compilation of each session's public acts, local acts, veto messages of the governor, executive reorganization orders, joint resolutions, constitutional amendments, initiated laws, and other information. Another source is Michigan Legislative Service, a compilation published by the West Publishing Company, issued periodically during the legislative year and containing most of the same information found in the Public and Local Acts, Michigan. Both sets are indexed, and both contain tables which indicate which public acts of that year, if any, amend any section of the Michigan Compiled Laws. One advantage of Michigan Legislative Service is that changes in the text of a law made by an amendatory act are indicated by an underline under the new language, and deletions of existing law are noted by the existence of deletion marks in place of the deleted language. This time-saving technique can be very useful in determining the specific changes made by an amendatory act.

If it is not known specifically when a law was enacted or when a particular amendment was made to a law, the researcher may refer to either of three codifications of Michigan law. The Michigan Compiled Laws, 1979 is the official publication of Michigan statutes, although this version only reflects the body of Michigan statutory law of a general and permanent nature through the end of 1979. It can, however, be updated by using either the Public and Local Acts, Michigan or Michigan Legislative Service. Two other versions, Michigan Compiled Laws Annotated, prepared by the West Publishing Company, and Michigan Statutes Annotated, prepared by Callaghan & Company, both contain a number of additional editorial features which can be of particular value to the researcher. Both are kept relatively current by the use of annual pocket part and pamphlet supplements which reflect any changes in the text of the law made during the years succeeding the printing of each volume of these sets. Michigan Statutes Annotated also includes a Current Legislation binder containing the text of recently passed laws as well as a Current Annotations binder, while Michigan Compiled Laws Annotated may be updated through the use of the Interim Annotation Service and Michigan Legislative Service. All three compilations contain catchlines at the top of each statute, so that the reader may tell at a glance the subject of a section. These publications also contain history notes at the bottom of each statute, indicating the source of each statute and a list of subsequent amendatory acts. Michigan Statutes Annotated and Michigan Compiled Laws Annotated, moreover, have an additional feature: "effect of amendment" notes. These notes indicate not only which public acts amended each particular statute, but also the substantive change made to the statute by each amendatory public act. The advantage of "effect of amendment" notes is that, by using these, the researcher is not required to read every amendment to a particular statute in order to find which act added, amended, or deleted the particular text he or she is interested in.

These committee records may include committee minutes (date, time, place of meeting, decisions made, and roll call votes), bill analyses, and letters and written testimony which may have been submitted to the committee by interested parties. Tape recordings and/or typed transcripts of public hearings conducted by committees may also be available.

In addition to the preceding sources, it may be helpful to contact the legislators who sponsored the bill. Sponsors may have retained or may be aware of the location of reports and press releases relating to the legislation in question. Also, a legislator's personal recollection may provide valuable insight. State or local agencies which administer an act can also be helpful. Government agencies may have rules, regulations, policies, or guidelines designed to implement a law. They may also have retained reports or analyses developed by that agency dealing with a bill. Annual reports of executive departments and agencies also may contain very useful information.

A complete review of all of the sources cited above can be a very time-consuming exercise. In many instances, however, such a search may reveal insightful information concerning the purposes for the passage of a bill.

• For current session bill summaries and analyses, contact the Legislative Document Room.

• This paper was prepared by Michael Farley, Deputy Division Director, Legislative Research Division, Legislative Service Bureau.

• Reprinted on the web with the Permission of Bill Fuller, October 3, 1995.

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