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Federal Legislative History

Legislative process, bills, reports, hearings, debates, etc. will be covered in this guide.

Presidential Statements

Often, when the President signs a bill into law, he will issue a statement stating why he is approving the legislation. These statements are usually brief and generally do not contain substantive analysis of the legislation. Since they do not come from Congress and are usually short, they are less useful for determining legislative intent than most of the other documents described above.  Presidential signing statements are published in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents.

To Find Presidential Statements