Congressional Committee Publications

If you are familiar with how to find information about Congressional committee publications, you can skip this section.

Overview: These are important because most action and lobbying takes place in committee.

Most committee information is published, but there may be a time lag of 6 months to 2 years on hearings.

Whenever they come out, these reports are invaluable.

Types of Publications

Hearings and Testimony

Print source: Hearings give you a lot of information, often in question-and-answer format:
  • testimony on proposed legislation.
  • testimony on nominations.
  • testimony on investigations.
  • testimony on appropriations.

The people who testify include lobbyists, members of the Executive Branch, and outside experts. This is an excellent source for lobby group opinions.

Printed hearings back to 1997 can be found in the Documents Center. They are also available on microfiche since 1817.

Committee Prints

Print source: Committee Prints are another useful source. They are research reports written FOR the Committee.

Committee Prints can be found in the Documents Center in paper and on microfiche.

Reports

Print source: Reports are recommendations written BY the committee for the House or Senate.

The last three years of Committee Reports can be found on paper in the Documents Center. On microfiche they exist back to 1789.

Index and Selected Text

Congressional Universe

Web source Congressional Universe offers indexes and abstracts beginning in 1970. Identify publications by searching under CIS Index.

Selected full texts of testimony are available since 1988 under Testimony.

Congressional Universe is only available to University of Michigan students, faculty, and staff from campus workstations, from home using the University's private Ann Arbor phone number, or through the remote server.

Printed source Paper copies of the last few years of committee publications are located in the Documents Center and can be checked out; earlier copies may be at Buhr (off campus storage). The Documents Center also has microfiche of all publications covering 1817 to the present.

If you would like the paper copy, be sure to write down its SUDOCS number. The SUDOCS number is a government publications call number that always has a colon (:) in it and looks like this example: Y4.M53:103.

Public Access Sources

Web source: Non-University of Michigan users can find additional options for the text of committee publications on the Documents Center's Legislative Histories web page.

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Last updated: 21 July 2003 [an error occurred while processing this directive]