US Federal Government Information

Federal document of the month:

Schweitzer, Dale F., et al. Conservation and Management of North American Bumble Bees, USDA Forest Service and NatureServe, 2012.

= UO users only

General

• USA.gov The US government's official portal
• Catalog of Government Publications
• Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

Executive

• Alphabetical list of all departments and agencies
• Code of Federal Regulations in Lexis-Nexis Academic
  • Choose US Legal in left column - then Federal Statutes, Codes and Regulations
  • 1938-present in print in US Documents compact shelving in Knight Library

• Presidential Papers and Speeches
• Presidential Directives and Executive Orders

Congress

• Official House of Representatives site.
• Official Senate site.

• Researching Legislation
  • Legislative Source Book. Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C. Contains good background information on how to research Congressional legislation.
  • Library Researching Legislation Guide
  • THOMAS Legislative information from the Library of Congress. See also Congress.gov, the successor to Thomas, still in beta.
  • How a Bill Becomes Law A humorous pictorial on the topic.
• Rules and Procedures
  • House of Representatives Rules
  • Standing Rules of the Senate and Senate Manual
  • In print:DOC-US Y 1.1/7 (House) and DOC-US Y 1.1/3 (Senate). Older editions are in the Congressional Serial Set(DOCS UNCAT SERIAL SET).
• C-SPAN Video Archive - audiovisual of the House and Senate floor; indexed back to 1979, with recordings regularly available beginning around 1990.
• Congressional Research Service
• A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1873 (Library of Congress, American Memory Project)
• CQ Researcher. In-depth exploration of public policy issues from CQ Press. Searchable archive dates back to 1991.
• Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report (CQ Weekly) Includes the current issue and a searchable archive of back issues. Independent, in-depth coverage of the Congress and its legislative actions. A good source for keeping track of the status of pending legislation, the results of roll call votes, etc.
• More Congress Information Sources

Judiciary

• Supreme Court
  • Oyez - nonprofit site with Supreme Court opinions, summaries, and audio of oral arguments
  • Supreme Court decisions, 1990 - present. Site maintained by the Cornell University Law School. Also provides links to other sources of Supreme Court decisions.
•  Federal Courts
  • Lexis-Nexis Academic. Case law from all federal court levels. From the left column, select US Legal, then Federal & State Cases. Once in that search page, there is a pull-down menu for Jurisdiction.
  • District Court cases and opinions, 1995-present, from commercial site FindLaw
• Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis & Interpretation - case law and analysis, organized by sections of the Constitution. Senate Documents.
  • In print in Documents Reference KF4527.U54 2004