• Bill Summary & Status
  • Coverage: 93rd through 108th Congresses (1973 - present)
  • Description: Information about bills and amendments. For each bill is provided sponsor(s), cosponsor(s), official, short and popular titles, floor/executive actions, detailed legislative history, Congressional Record page references, bill summary, committees of referral, reporting and origin, subcommittees of referral, links to other committee information on the WWW servers operated by the House, amendment descriptions (and text, when available), subjects (indexing terms assigned to each bill), a link to the full text versions of the bill, and links to the full text of the law, when the bill has been enacted into law, on the Government Printing Office Web site (in both text and .PDF formats). For laws having received the line-item veto in the 105th Congress, links to the text of cancellation notices and links to any disapproval bills are given. NOTE: Not all information is available in the earlier Congresses. See: Tips for Searching Earlier Congresses.
  • Access: Searchable by word/phrase, subject (index) term, bill/amendment number, stage in the legislative process, dates of introduction, sponsor/cosponsor, and committee. Browsable lists of all legislation, public laws, private laws, vetoed bills, and bills/amendments sponsored/cosponsored by each Member during each Congress.
  • Source: Library of Congress.
• Bill Text
  • Coverage: 101st - 108th Congresses (1989 - present)
  • Description: Full text of all Government Printing Office (GPO)-supplied versions of bills.
  • Access: Searchable by word/phrase, bill number. Searches may be limited to only those bills receiving floor action, enrolled bills, or to House or Senate bills. Browsable lists of bill text by bill type and number. Display of words in the database (beginning at the word you type), along with how many times each word occurs in the database and how many documents contain that word. At the bottom of the search page, you can specify the number of bills to be retrieved (the default is 50). The fewer you specify, the faster your search, but you may miss relevant documents. The more you specify, the longer your search will take.
  • Source: Library of Congress
• Public Laws by Law Number
  • Coverage: 93rd through 108th Congresses (1973 - present)
  • Description: Bill Summary & Status records for each bill that became public law, listed by law number order and in bill number sequence (House Joint Resolutions, House Bills, Senate Joint Resolutions, Senate Bills).
  • Access: Laws are listed both by law number order and in bill number sequence (House Joint Resolutions, House Bills, Senate Joint Resolutions, Senate Bills). Information provided for each bill that became law is described in the "Description" section for the Bill Summary & Status databases.
  • Source: Library of Congress
• Votes
  • House Roll Call Votes
    • Coverage: 101st Congress, 2nd session, through 108th Congress (1990 - present)
    • Description: Roll call (recorded) votes from the House of Representatives listed in reverse chronological order (by roll call vote number).
    • Access: The vote summary page lists roll call vote number, vote date, the "issue" (bill/amendment number being voted on, quorum call or Journal approval), the "question" (description of the vote), the result (Passed, Failed, or Agreed to), and the title/description of the legislation. Detailed vote pages show individual member votes and vote totals by party.
    • Source: US House of Representatives
  • Senate Roll Call Votes
    • Coverage: 101st Congress, 1st session, through 108th Congress (1989 - present)
    • Description: Roll call (yea-nay) votes from the Senate listed in reverse chronological order (by roll call vote number). Votes are broken down three ways: Senate Roll Call Votes Taken Today, Senate Roll Call Votes Taken This Week, Senate Roll Call Vote Tables, Current and Prior Congresses. For Senate Roll Call Votes Taken Today, the results of roll call votes are generally posted approximately one hour after they are announced by the Presiding Officer of the Senate.
    • Access: The vote summary page lists roll call vote number, vote date, bill number (when applicable), vote result, and title/description of vote. Vote detail pages show individual member votes ordered alphabetically by member, ordered by vote category (yeas, nays, not voting and "presents") and votes summaries (total for each of these vote categories). In additional to votes on legislative business -- bills/amendments, procedural matters (motions, etc.) -- Senate votes on nominations and treaties are shown (executive business).
    • Source: US Senate

• CONGRESSIONAL RECORD:
  • Most Recent Issue
    • Coverage: Current Congress (108th)
    • Description: A list of all issues received and processed during the current two-year Congress, listed in reverse chronological order. The most recent issue processed appears first on the list.
    • Access: Browsable by date and part or section of the Record: i.e., House, Senate, Extensions of Remarks, Daily Digest. Congressional Record page citations in the Digest are linked to the full text; bill numbers in the Digest are linked to the full text of the bill.
    • Source: Library of Congress
  • Congressional Record Text
    • Coverage: 101st - 108th Congresses (1989 - present)
    • Description: Full text of daily edition of the Congressional Record.
    • Access: Searchable by word/phrase, by Member of Congress, and/or date or date range. Searches by Member name retrieve debates/speeches during which a certain member of Congress spoke; retrieve his/her remarks inserted in the Record in the Extensions of Remarks section; or return articles with mention of his/her name in other contexts (e.g., Congressional Record notice of additional sponsors added to a bill). You can search the entire Record or limit your searches by section of the Record (House, Senate, Extensions of Remarks, Daily Digest), by date or date range, and/or Member name. Browsable list of daily issues divided by section (House, Senate, Extensions of Remarks, and Daily Digest); each section is preceded by a clickable Table of Contents for that section for that day. Browsable display of words in the database (beginning at the word you type), along with how many times each word occurs in the database and how many documents contain that word. Links are made to the Congressional Record Index for each session of that Congress. Under "Document Display Options" at the bottom of the page, you can specify the number of Congressional Record articles to be returned (the default is 50), and you can sort the set of those returned by date (in reverse chronological order). The fewer documents you specify, the faster your search; however you may miss relevant documents. The more documents you specify, the longer your search may take.
    • Source: Library of Congress
  • Congressional Record Index
    • Coverage: 108th - 104th Congresses; 103rd Congress, 2nd session; cumulative for each session; published every 2 weeks.
    • Description: Index to the daily edition of the Congressional Record prepared by staff under the leadership of the Joint Committee on Printing.
    • Access: Searchable by index term; browsable by index terms arranged in alphabetical ranges. Page references for index terms (topics) and bill numbers are linked to the Congressional Record full text file. Links to searches for major topics -- those most commonly searched -- are provided, as well as, for the 106th and 108th Congresses, a link to the GPO version of the Congressional Record Index that is updated daily when Congress is in session.
    • Source: Library of Congress
  • Days-in-Session Calendars
    • Coverage: Senate: 95th Congress, 2nd Session - 105th Congress, 2nd Session (1978 - 1998)
      House: 94th Congress, 1st Session - 105th Congress, 2nd Session (1975 - 1998)
    • Description: Calendars show the days the House and Senate met for each session covered: in-session days are in red (graphical browsers) or in bold (text browsers). The House Calendars report the total legislative days and the total number of calendar days the House met. The Senate Calendars show the scheduled non-legislative-period days in italics.
    • Access: Data is presented in monthly calendar format, so rare weekend sessions can be spotted immediately. The calendars are browsable (not searchable). Congressional terms are linked to their definitions, e.g., legislative days etc.
    • Source: Library of Congress

• COMMITTEE INFORMATION
  • Committee Reports
    • Coverage: 104th - 108th Congresses
    • Description: The full text of House and Senate committee reports (including conference reports and joint committee reports) printed by GPO -- most, but not all, committee reports are printed.
    • Access: Searchable by word/phrase, report number, bill number, committee;searches can be limited by type of report (House, Senate, Conference, Joint). Browsable sequentially by House/Senate committee report number, by conference report and joint committee report. Display of words in the database (beginning at the word you type), along with how many times each word occurs in the database and how many documents contain that word. At the bottom of the search page, you can specify the number of reports to be retrieved (the default is 10). The fewer you specify, the faster your search, but you may miss relevant documents. The more you specify, the longer your search will take.
    • Source: Library of Congress
  • Committee Home Pages
    • Coverage: 108th Congress
    • Description: Links to House and Senate Committee home pages residing on House and Senate servers. Pages typically include: committee jurisdiction, chair, full committee and subcommittee membership, committee schedules, press releases, witness lists, hearing transcripts, committee publications.
    • Access: Browsable by committee name.
    • Source: US House of Representatives and US Senate
  • House Committees
    • Coverage: 108th Congress
    • Description: Links to House servers with information on 1) Schedules and Oversight Plans for each of the House committees. 2) Selected hearing transcripts from some of the House committees. Because each committee provides its own hearing schedules, there is no common format.
    • Access: Browsable. For some hearing transcripts, links are provided to statements by Members and witnesses listed alphabetically.
    • Source: US House of Representatives
  • Senate Committees
    • Coverage: 108th Congress
    • Description: Links to Senate servers with information on Senate hearing schedules. The time, place, and purpose of the meetings are shown.
    • Access: Browsable.
    • Source: US Senate.

In addition to THOMAS databases, the THOMAS home page provides these links of interest to the legislative searcher in the column to the left of the main body of the homepage.

• Frequently Asked Questions: Answers are given to users' most frequently asked questions about the THOMAS system, culled from the THOMAS mailbag.

• House and Senate Directories: Provided by the Office of the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate, respectively. The Clerk's Web site gives access to an alphabetical list of House Members, with their room assignments and phone numbers; lists of Members by state delegation; list of Member committee assignments, and additional Member information. The Secretary of the Senate provides lists of Senators both alphabetically and by state. Each Senator's name is linked to his/her home page with directory information (room, phone, fax number) as well as other information provided by that Senator's office.

• Congressional Internet Services: Links to the Web sites of other legislative agencies, including the House, Senate, Library of Congress, Government Printing Office (GPO), General Accounting Office (GAO), Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Architect of the Capitol (AOC), Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) [now closed, but Web site is archived], plus additional Congressional servers.

• Library of Congress Web Links: Web indexes to Internet resources on Federal Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches, as well as State and Local government prepared by subject specialists on the Library's staff. The Judicial page includes links to regulatory information as well (Federal Register, CFR, Unified Agenda).

• THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS:
  • House: How Our Laws Are Made
    • Coverage: Revised November 1997 to reflect the legislative process current to the 105th Congress.
    • Description: Hypertext version of the 22nd edition of a publication originally written and published in 1953 by Charles F. Willett, House Law Revision Counsel. The November 1997 edition has been extensively revised and updated by Charles W. Johnson, Parliamentarian of the House of Representatives. Describes the numerous steps of our Federal lawmaking process from the origin of an idea for a legislative proposal through its publication as a law. Emphasis is on the legislative process in the House of Representatives, although Senate procedure is also covered.
    • Access: Browsable sequentially through the entire document, or by individual chapters accessed through a clickable table of contents. The entire document is available in plain text for downloading.
    • Source: Library of Congress
  • Senate: Enactment of a Law
    • Coverage: Revised February 1997 to reflect the legislative process in the 105th Congress.
    • Description: Hypertext version of a publication of the Senate Parliamentarian's Office. The February 1997 edition has been revised and updated by Robert B. Dove, Parliamentarian of the United States Senate. Describes the numerous steps of our Federal lawmaking process from the origin of an idea for a legislative proposal through its publication as a law. Also describes the executive business of the Senate, consisting of nominations and treaties submitted to the Senate by the President of the United States for its "advice and consent." Emphasis is on the legislative process and executive sessions in the Senate, although the legislative procedure in the House of Representatives is also covered.
    • Access: Browsable sequentially through the entire document, or by individual chapters accessed through a clickable table of contents. The entire document is available for downloading.
    • Source: Library of Congress

• Coverage: 91st - 108th Congress (1969 - present)
• Description: Congressional "workload" statistics published for each session of Congress. Included are "legislative" and "executive" data. The résumé of legislative data includes, for each Congress, such measures as days and number of hours Congress was in session; bills enacted into law; total number of measures introduced, passed, and reported; number of conference reports; quorum calls; yea-and-nay and recorded votes; bills vetoed, and vetoes overridden. A second quantitative component of the Résumé includes the Disposition of Executive Nominations -- a table of the numbers of Civilian, Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps nominations submitted to the Senate by the President each Congress for confirmation -- how many were received, confirmed, not confirmed, withdrawn, or returned.
• Access: Data is presented in tabular format; browsable (not searchable). Congressional terms are linked to their definitions, e.g., Senate Joint Resolutions, conference reports, quorum calls, etc.
• Source: Library of Congress

• Coverage: Chiefly from 1774 - 1789, although amendments to the Constitution through the 27th (ratified 1992) are included.
• Description: Includes broadsides from the Constitutional Convention and Continental Congress, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments. Background, describing the origin and impact of the documents, is also provided.
• Access: Historical documents are word/phrase searchable, as a collection, as well as searchable and browsable individually. (Note: The Declaration of Independence is searchable as part of the broadsides collection, but is not individually searchable.)
• Source: Library of Congress

• Coverage: The link to the Library of Congress American Memory collection entitled "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: US Congressional Documents and Debates: 1774-1873" now includes Senate and House Journals and the Annals of Congress (the earliest precursor of today's Congressional Record) for very early Congresses. Later Congresses will be added in the coming months.
• Description: "US Congressional Documents and Debates: 1774-1873" now includes Senate and House Journals, Senate Executive Journals, the Annals of Congress (the earliest precursor of today's Congressional Record) for very early Congresses, Journals of the Continental Congress, Elliot's Debates, Ferrands Records, Maclay's Journal.
• Access: All US Congressional Documents in this American Memory collection are browsable and also searchable.
• Source: Library of Congress

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Information about bills in the Bill Summary & Status files: Typically, basic information about a bill or resolution, including the sponsor and cosponsor(s), committee of referral (if appropriate), short title (if any), official title, status steps, chronology of actions, and Congressional Record page number references, appears in the Bill Summary and Status file within 24 to 48 hours after introduction of or action on the measure. Changes in a bill's status are generally available the next day. A link to a bill's full text is created as soon as the text is received from the Government Printing Office, usually within 24 to 48 hours of introduction or action. Index terms, digest, and revised digests, which require analysis of the text, are available as soon as 48 hours after introduction or action, depending on the complexity of the measure and the volume of legislative activity. The file is updated daily.

In 2003, THOMAS transmitted 117,916,977 files, comprising 158,625,770,393 bytes (1.59 terabytes) of information.

On average, 323,060 files (or 4,345,911,518 bytes) were transmitted every day.

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ABOUT INQUERY

Searching in THOMAS is done under the InQuery information retrieval system, developed by the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval based at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

InQuery employs a relevance-ranking algorithm for searching, and displays search results with the most-relevant items appearing first on the results list. Experienced searchers who wish to use Boolean searching may use native InQuery syntax to override the relevance-ranking default.

To learn more about how InQuery works in the THOMAS system, choose from among the following topics:

• InQuery and Relevance Ranking
• The Complete Guide to Searching THOMAS Under InQuery
• InQuery Stopword List for THOMAS
• Using InQuery's Boolean, Proximity, and Relevance Operators
• Use of Native InQuery: Structured Searches (Examples of Boolean, Proximity and Fielded Searches)
• Web Developer's Guide on How to Make Direct Links to THOMAS Documents
• Providing Government Information on the Internet: Experiences with THOMAS
  Proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries, Austin, Texas, June 11-13, 1995

• Home page
• Products
• InQuery

A THOMAS BUTTON FOR YOUR WEB PAGE
If you want to build a link from your Web page to THOMAS, using a colorful graphical button, copy this code to make the button on your Web page:

<a href="http://thomas.loc.gov">
<img src="http://thomas.loc.gov/images/link.gif" 
alt="[Link to THOMAS Home Page]"></a>

Your button will look (and act) like this:

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