illinois legislative history research guide

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I. Overview of Sources and Coverage

The John Marshall Law School Louis L. Biro Law Library Reference Department

RESEARCH GUIDE TO ILLINOISLEGISLATIVE HISTORY

Legislative history consists of all the documentation produced during the legislative process,including bills, debates, reports and hearings. Researchers look to legislative history when themeaning of a statute is unclear. In so doing, they wish to discern what the legislature intendedwhen enacting the statute. However, legislative history research is time consuming and oftenfutile, in that there may be no discussion at all of the statutory language in question. Therefore, it

is usually a last resort when there are no other sources of law (i.e. case law or regulatory law)that interpret the statute. This is commonly the case with recently enacted legislation.

a. Case lawAlways check the annotations to case law in one of the annotated versions of the IllinoisCompiled Statutes (ILCS) to find cases that have interpreted your statute. There are two suchannotated sets: Wests Smith-Hurd Illinois Compiled Statutes Annotated ( 6M, 7M & 10 th flrs.KFI1230 .A473 1992 ) and Michies Illinois Compiled Statutes Annotated ( 6M, 7M & 10 th flrs.KFI1230. A462 ). To be even more thorough, you can also shepardize a statutory provision usingShepards Illinois Citations Statutes volumes ( 6M, 7M & 10 th flrs. KFI1259 .54 2004 ).

b. Regulatory LawAn agencys interpretation of a statute may also help clarify its meaning. Be sure to check theIllinois Administrative Code (IAC). The Joint Committee of Administrative Rules (JCAR)

publishes an electronic version of the IAC athttp://www.ilga.gov/commission/jcar/admincode/titles.htmlA print version entitled Code of Illinois Rules is on the 10 th floor of the Library. ( 10 th flr.KFI1235 .A9 2000+ ).

c. Articles Newspaper and journal articles related to the enactment of the law you are researching may also be quite helpful. The explanation of an author who is an expert in the field may be easier to

understand than the statutory language itself. Articles from bar journals and law reviews,including the Illinois Bar Journal, CBA Record and Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, can be foundusing the electronic LegalTrac index. LegalTrac is available on the Law Schools computernetwork. Print indexes are located in stack 6:4 of the Librarys Research collection.

d. Statutes and Session LawsIllinois legislative history differs from federal legislative history, in that it consists mostly of thetext of the bills and laws themselves and any Illinois House and Senate floor debates that
http://www.ilga.gov/commission/jcar/admincode/titles.htmlhttp://www.ilga.gov/commission/jcar/admincode/titles.html


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occurred during their passage. Typically, one starts by finding the text of the law in the currentIllinois Compiled Statutes and the Illinois session laws. The official publication of the Illinoissession laws is entitled the Laws of the State of Illinois and is located on the 10 th floor of theLibrary ( 10 th flr. KFI 1225 ). This publication dates back to the inception of the State. It containsthe text of the laws as first enacted in chronological, public act number order before the laws arecodified (arranged by subject into a code). Older editions of the codified Illinois Statutes (nowknown as Illinois Compiled Statutes or ILCS) are also invaluable for tracking the evolution ofstatutory language.

e. Bills and DebatesAs mentioned above, most of Illinois legislative history consists of all versions of the bill andany House and Senate floor debates about it. As mandated by the Illinois Constitution of 1970,

publication of the debates began in 1971. Transcriptions of the debates were published inmicrofiche format from the 77 th General Assembly (1971-1972) through the 90 th GeneralAssembly (1997-1998). House and Senate bills have also been published in fiche since 1979starting with the 81 st General Assembly. Transcripts of the debates from the 90 th GeneralAssembly (1997-1998) through the current the G. A. are available on CD ROM. Transcriptsfrom the current and earlier General Assemblies are now also available via the Illinois GeneralAssembly website (ILGA) at http://www.ilga.gov . A step-by-step explanation of how to locatethe debates via the ILGA website is contained in Part III of this Research Guide.

f. House and Senate JournalsIn addition, if you wish to do thorough legislative history research, you should consult thefollowing sources. Both the House and Senate publish journals, which constitute an officialrecord of the actions taken by the legislature. The House and Senate Journals contain the votingrecords for each bill, text of amendments, conference committee reports and motions. TheseJournals began publication in 1819. The Librarys holdings date back to 1961. They are arrangedin date order on the 10 th floor. ( 10 th flr . KFI1218 .I34 and KFI1218 .I44 ).

g. Legislative Synopsis and DigestThe Legislative Synopsis and Digest dates from the 1900s and is also located on the 10 th floor ofthe Library ( 10 th flr. KFI1207 ). The Librarys print holdings date back to 1947. This publicationcontains summaries of the bills and all actions taken with respect to them. This bill status recordis an indispensable tool for tracking the history of a bill before it was enacted into law. TheLegislative Synopsis and Digest is published weekly in print. A final annual version is availablein fiche. The Library has older editions in microfilm (1879-1987) and fiche (1987-1993). Therecan be a lag of several years in the print publication of the above titles. However, digitizedversions of the House and Senate Journals and Legislative Synopsis and Digest from the currentand previous General Assemblies (90 th G.A. and later) are available at the ILGA website.

h. HearingsLastly, House Committee hearings have been recorded since 1975 and are available on tape fromthe Office of the Clerk of the House. The House Committee Clerk's office will provide the tapesat a cost of $5.00 per tape. Contact the office at (217) 782-8100. Senate Committee Hearings arenot taped.
http://www.ilga.gov/http://www.ilga.gov/


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II. Legislative Process & Preliminary Steps

When conducting Illinois legislative history research, it is helpful to keep in mind the legislative process. In Illinois, as in the U.S. Congress, a bill must pass both chambers, House and Senate,in identical form, before becoming a law. The Illinois Constitution requires that the law be readthree times in each chamber. No debates occur during the first reading. There may be debateaccompanying later readings. There may be no debate about a bill, particularly if it has been puton an agreed bill list. The Illinois General Assembly adopted the agreed bill process forthose bills it deemed in advance to be unobjectionable and therefore, not warranting debate. Thelegislature may group such bills together and act upon them simultaneously. For an example ofhow a bill is passed, see Appendix A of this Guide. Once a bill becomes law, it is known as aPublic Act (P.A.) and published in the session laws (Laws of Illinois) in P.A. number order.Eventually, the Public Act is codified (put in subject arrangement) and incorporated into theILCS.

1. Before embarking on legislative history research, you must first identify the law you wish toresearch by its Public Act number. Using the statutory citation (i.e. 225 ILCS 605/3.1), you canlocate the P.A. number at the end of the specific section you are researching. Note that the firsttwo digits of the P.A. number (i.e. P.A. 87-819) stand for the General Assembly (i.e. 87 th). In thisinstance, P.A. 87-819 is the 819 th law enacted by the 87 th G.A. See Appendix B of this Guide.

NOTE: There may be more than one P.A. number listed, because the section may have beenamended one or more times over the years. The first P.A. number listed is usually the initialenactment of the law, while subsequent P.A. numbers refer to any later amendments. You mayneed to look up some or all of the Public Acts listed in order to determine which one contains thestatutory language in question.

2. Once you identify the correct Public Act, you must then find the bill number in order to locateany legislative debate about your bill. The bill number can be found in the Illinois session laws,the Laws of Illinois, described in Part I.d. above. See Appendix C . There is a complete set of theLaws of Illinois on the 10 th floor at stack 10:17. Volumes from recent General Assemblies canalso be found on 6M. In addition, Public Acts are available via the ILGA website from the 90 th General Assembly (1997-8) forward. Find the bill number at the beginning of the text.

3. Once you have your bill number, you may wish to obtain a bill status chart that indicates thedates on which you bill was read and perhaps debated. You can obtain such a chart in a numberof ways. The Legislative Synopsis and Digest mentioned in Part I.g. above, contains this helpfulinformation, as do the Indexes to the microfiche of the debates on the 6 th floor of the Library.Starting with the 90 th General Assembly (1997-8) forward, the equivalent information can beretrieved via the ILGA website as described further below.

III. Using the ILGA Website

The content available at the ILGA website for previous General Assemblies varies. For earlierGeneral Assemblies, especially prior to the 90 th G.A. (1997-8), less information is available inelectronic format. When a previous G.A. is selected, a menu will be presented showing thecontent available for that particular G.A. Types of content available include:


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a) LegislationBill Status and Full Text options

b) Votes (Senate)/Roll Calls (House)c) Public Actsd) Memberse) Committeesf) Journals by legislative day and calendar dateg) TranscriptsFloor debate transcripts by legislative day and calendar date (transcripts

from older General Assemblies are scanned images)h) Summary Reportsvarious reports on the selected GA (older versions are scanned

images)

As mentioned earlier, transcription of the debates began with the 77 th General Assembly (1971-2) pursuant to the 1970 Illinois Constitution. All House and Senate debates from current and

previous G.A.s going back to the 77 th G.A. have now been made accessible via the ILGAwebsite. Thus, you will probably never need to use the fiche or CD ROM versions described inPart I.e. above to read the debates.

However, as of the date of this Guide, many other materials like Public Acts, bills and Journalsare not available at the ILGA website prior to the 90 th (1997-8) G.A. so you may still need to usethose materials in print or fiche. Also, the transcripts of the debates at the ILGA website areorganized by date. While it is possible to search all of the debates for an entire G.A. using thewebsites search engine, some researchers prefer to focus on particular dates i.e. the dates of thesecond and third bill readings, as those are the dates on which any relevant debate about the billare most likely to have taken place. To retrieve such a chart, take the following steps:

1. If you are working with P.A. 93-544, for example, click on Previous General Assemblyunder Additional Resources at the ILGA home page. Select 93rd General Assembly fromthe drop down menu and click on Go!. Then go to Public Acts under Legislation andclick on listing. Find your P.A. number to pull up the text of the Public Act includingthe bill number, SB1872.

2. Go back to the 93rd G.A. home page, Legislation & Laws, click on listing and look foryour Senate Bill number. When you click on your bill number, you may see a synopsis ofthe bill with links to full text and bill status or you may immediately see a bill statuschart like the one below. (Bill status charts for earlier General Assemblies may look morelike straight text without the blue hypertext links).


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3. Make a note of the second and third readings or dates of any other important bill action.Then go back to the home page of the particular G.A. (i.e. 93 rd ), select transcripts forHouse or Senate and click on listing. Using the pull down menu, you can then selecttranscripts for the dates you have noted.

4. Search the transcripts using the Windows find command Ctrl + F in order to findreferences to a particular bill in the text of the House and Senate debates. Using the billnumber itself (i.e. 1872) is often an adequate search term.

IV. Updating Statutory Research

Many of the sources mentioned in this Guide are also useful for tracking current bills. The ILGAwebsite, for example, is an excellent bill tracking tool. When doing statutory research in print, beaware that bills enacted during the current General Assembly may not be reflected in either the

bound volume or pocket part of the Illinois Compiled Statutes. There is always a lag betweenenactment of legislation and codification. It is wise to check the latest issues of the IllinoisLegislative Service ( 6M, 7M & 10 th flrs. KFI1230 .A49 ) to make sure that your research is asup to date as possible. The Illinois Legislative Service contains the most recent laws enacted inPublic Act number order. It consists of a series of colorful pamphlets next to the ILCS set. These

pamphlets come out more quickly than the official session laws volumes. Check the table in thelatest pamphlet to see if a recent Public Act has affected your statute. Electronic research viaservices like Lexis or Westlaw will be even more current than the above print sources.

V. For Further Information

The process and sources described above will provide you with most of the available legislativehistory material provided by the state.

The following titles contain helpful chapters on researching legislative history in Illinois:


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Legislative Reference Bureau, Researching Legislative History,http://www.ilga.gov/commission/lrb/lrbres.htm .

Wojcik, Mark E. Illinois Legal Research. Durham, NC.: Carolina Academic Press (2003).KFI1275 W65 2003 Reserve & Fac. Display. See Chapter 4 on Statutes.

Wendt, Laurel. Illinois Legal Research Guide. 2nd ed. KFI 1275 .W46 2006 Reserve.

If you have any further questions about the legislative history materials feel free to ask areference librarian for assistance.

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APPENDIX A

From Handbook of Illinois Government [Springfield: Office of Secretary of Stateof Illinois] JK5730 .I44 Reserve
http://www.legis.state.il.us/commission/lrb/lrbres.htmhttp://www.legis.state.il.us/commission/lrb/lrbres.htmhttp://www.legis.state.il.us/commission/lrb/lrbres.htm


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APPENDIX B

225 ILCS 605/3.1


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APPENDIX C

illinois legislative history research guide

Documents