Federal Bills and Laws in Paper

Bills proposed to the United States Congress are available in several formats. In the Law Library we have them on microfiche in cabinets in the back of the reference area and in hardcopy throughout the library.  If you look up a title in our online catalog you may find a shelving location listed.  These codes indicate the floor (M=Main, B=Basement and S=Second), the direction (E=East, W=West, S=South and N=North) and the range number where the item is located.  The United States Code, for example, is shelved at S-W-14.  You would find this on the Second floor, West side of the room, beginning on range 14.

Bills passed by Congress and signed by the President are first officially printed as “slip laws” (S-W-13) identified by their public law number, e.g. P.L. 105-30 (that is, the 30th public law passed by the 105th Congress). After each session of Congress, the slip laws are bound in public law order and published as United States Statutes at Large (S-W-13). A commercially published set called United States Code Congressional and Administrative News [USCCAN] (M-N-2) contains the same laws and is published in a more timely manner than the Statutes at Large. In addition, USCCAN contains some legislative history documents for important statutes, while the Statutes at Large does not, though it only goes back to the mid-1900's.

In order to find the current language of the law one must use a compilation of statutes in force. For the federal government this compilation is the United States Code (S-W-14). The corresponding commercially published versions of the U.S. Code—the United States Code Annotated (M-C-7) and the United States Code Service (M-C-5) are more current and provide references to judicial decisions that interpret the statutes as well as other research references.

Wyoming Bills and Laws in Paper

Bills introduced into the Wyoming legislature for the current year are available in paper at the Reserve Desk and electronically at the Legislative Service Office web site at http://legisweb.state.wy.us.

After Wyoming bills are passed by the legislature and are signed by the governor they are known as enrolled acts. When published, they appear as Session Laws of Wyoming, organized by chapter number in the order in which they were signed.

Wyoming’s official compilation of laws in force is the Wyoming Statutes Annotated (M-N-1 and on Reserve).  They are electronically accessible at http://legisweb.state.wy.us/titles/statutes.htm. Wyoming also has a compilation of laws in force, the Wyoming Statutes Annotated (M-N-1; S-N-33; and on Reserve). The Wyoming Statutes Annotated is completely republished every two years and is updated between editions with a single volume supplement.

There is also an unofficial compilation of Wyoming statutes, West’s Wyoming Statutes Annotated.  We have only one copy of this at M-N-1.  both compilations include court decisions that interpret the statutes.

Online Resources

Federal
 If you have university internet access, a complete historic collection of legislative materials can be accessed electronically through Academic Universe on the UW Libraries’ database page, http://www-lib.uwyo.edu.  Select the following:  Articles and Databases-LexisNexis Academic-Related Products-Congressional (right column). 

There are a number of excellent free sites available on the internet for federal bills and statutes as well:

Federal Bills
Thomas, the Library of Congress Legislative Server, at http://thomas.loc.gov is highly regarded. The collection dates back to the 1980’s for many of the resources.

GPO Access, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html maintains its own collection of materials produced during the legislative process. Many of the resources on these two sites duplicate each other, but they also access some specific materials that can very useful.

Federal Statutes
Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/

GPO Access, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html.

State Legislative Materials
Legislative resources from other states can be most directly accessed through one of the Internet legal portals, like Findlaw, http://www.findlaw.com; State and local government.net, http://www.statelocalgov.net; and Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, http://www.law.cornell.edu.


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