TOOLS

CONTENTS:

• THOMAS
• State Legislation Search
• Stateline.org

THOMAS

Do you need to find out what legislation your prospect is supporting and what it means? Or what's going on in the House or Senate that could affect your non-profit? Visit THOMAS, provided by the Library of Congress so the average surfer can find federal legislation, committee information, Congressional debates and voting records.

THOMAS has full-text federal legislation and the "Congressional Record" back to the 101st Congress in 1989-90, and summaries of legislation back to the 93rd Congress in 1973-74. Committee information goes back to the 104th session in 1995-96. Prior to 1989, you have to go find the print version (sigh) of legislation and the "Congressional Record" at a Federal Depository Library. You can find one near you, via state or area code.

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/findlibs/index.html

If you want to find truly historic (1774-1873) Congressional documents and debates on-line, check out http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lawhome.html at the Law Library of Congress site. There's quite a gap in legislative records on the Web . . . probably due to the sheer volume of legislation to be uploaded, not to mention all that legislator fili-blustering.

Now back to THOMAS. Searching THOMAS is easy. Click on a session of Congress, then select your search parameters. Fortunately, when you click on the session, it lists the years for that session. Results are ranked by relevancy, based on the number of times the search terms appear in a document. If more than one search term is used, and the word-string within the series of terms appears as a phrase in a document, that occurrence is given more weight than if all the search terms appear separately.

You can search Congressional bills, full-text or summary, by word or phrase, subject, number, stage in the legislative process, date, sponsors and committee. I searched for the word Oregon and got 102 hits from the 106th Congress alone. I think I need to narrow my search!

The "Congressional Record" is the best place to find out what legislators actually said in session, because it is a verbatim record and contains more information than the official journals of the House and Senate. The Record is compiled overnight, on a daily basis, and after each session, by the Government Publications Office. Be aware, however, that members of Congress can edit their remarks, but they have to do this in time to meet the Record publication deadline the next day! They can also revise their remarks or extend them in the Extension of Remarks section for later publication, so you may need to examine more than one issue of the Record to get the full story. "Congressional Record" search is limited to word or phrase, member of Congress or date. Further limit your search to a section of a record or by the number of documents to retrieve.

Committee activities are not included in the "Congressional Record" unless a committee makes a report to the House or Senate. But that's no problem, at least for the 104th to 107th sessions. Search THOMAS to find out who the members are and what the committees are considering.

http://thomas.loc.gov

STATE LEGISLATION SEARCH

I don't know who Scruffy is but s/he provides links to sites that allow you to search state legislation. The bonus is that the linked sites all offer full-text searching. The site is organized by state, then Web sites for each state.

http://www.prairienet.org/~scruffy/f.htm

STATELINE.ORG

Need a dose of state legislative news on a daily basis? Stateline.org meets your need! Stateline is administered by the University of Richmond with funding from Pew Charitable Trusts' Pew Center on the States.

Get issue or state specific news at the Web site or by e-mail alert. Full-text versions of the "state of the state" address given by the governor of each state will be posted this year. Check the site for the governors' speech-availability dates.

http://stateline.org

Chris Mildner