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HOW TO KEEP TRACK OF FEDERAL LEGISLATION

Here are some helpful links to legislative information about issues you care about:

About Congress:
You can learn basic information about the legislative process, key committees, and your Members of Congress through the links below.

Finding Information About an Issue:
You can search for legislation on important issues by key words, or by bill number. You will be linked either directly to the text of the bill, or to a list of bills that might be of interest. Once you have found a bill you can link to its Bill Summary and Status file. This link will provide helpful information such as the (co)sponsors of the bill, when the bill was introduced, and what the last major action was on the bill. This will indicate what the bill is about and how far along the bill has moved in the legislative process.

Committee Reports:
You can find committee reports describing actions of a committee on a bill or issue in the Bill Summary and Status page of a particular bill. You can also search for committee reports by topic, or committee name.

Congressional Record:
The Congressional Record allows you to search the text of proceedings on the House or Senate floor, and is updated daily. Search a day's proceedings for a particular day, or the most recent day. Or conduct a text search to search for a particular legislator, bill, or issue, to find relevant floor statements and floor votes.

Current Legislative Activity:
When the House and/or Senate are in session, you can search for what is being considered on the floor of the House, and what has recently been decided on the floor of the Senate.

Federal Agencies:
After laws have been passed, federal programs are administered by the federal government through federal agencies. The Department of Health and Human Services, houses the Administration on Children and Families, which administers important programs such as the Child Care and Development Block Grant, Head Start, and the Social Services Block Grant. The Department of Education administers educational programs such as the 21st Century Community Learning Centers, and the Dropout Prevention Program. The Department of Justice houses the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention which administers Title V Community Prevention Grants and other prevention and treatment programs for juveniles.

Note: Links to much of this information can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov, also known as THOMAS. THOMAS was created by the Library of Congress, and allows you to find information about legislation that has been considered and or passed by Congress since 1973.