The BSS page allows you to search THOMAS files for information about specific legislation. It provides a choice of seven ways to search:
| SEARCH BY: |
WHAT IT FINDS: |
| Bill, Amendment, or Public Law Number | one, specific piece of legislation |
| Word/Phrase | legislation whose Summary & Status information contains the word(s) you provide; the actual text of the legislation is not searched. |
| Sponsor/Cosponsor | legislation sponsored or cosponsored by specific Members of Congress |
| Committee | legislation considered by specific committees |
| Stage in Legislative Process | legislation that has reached a selected stage in the legislative process |
| Date of Introduction | legislation introduced on a given date or within a given time period |
| Standard Subject Term | legislation associated with a standardized term; similar to the Word/Phrase search but based on a controlled vocabulary provided in the Legislative Indexing Vocabulary |
Input or selection boxes are provided on the BSS page for each type of search. All searches (except the first) are combinable.
Legislation includes bills (public and private), amendments, simple resolutions, concurrent resolutions, and joint resolutions.
BSS must be searched on a Congress-by-Congress basis. It is not currently possible to search across Congresses.
BSS data begin with the 93rd Congress (1973-74), except for Amendment data which begin with the 95th (1977).
The results of a search may be one item of legislation or many. In the latter case, a results page displays a list of found legislation alaong with some brief information about each item. Here is a brief example of what it looks like:
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Bill Summary & Status for the 107th Congress 123 Items were found sponsored by SEN Leahy, Patrick J. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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The display may include Title and Note about interrelationships as well, if they exist for the given bill.
When you select one item from the list (by clicking on the bill number), another page is displayed with both fuller information and links to yet more information. If the search produced only one bill, this page is displayed immediately. Here is an example (with the links removed) of the fuller information display:
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Bill Summary & Status for the 107th Congress NEW SEARCH | HOME | HELP |
Note and Related Bills are displayed only if they have content.
Below this display, links to other information are provided, if the information exists for the given bill:
| Titles | a bill may have one or more titles |
| Bill Status | a chronological history of the legislative stages the bill has achieved; dates in the in black represent House actions, in maroon (or some shade thereof) Senate actions; links to any roll call votes are also provided |
| Bill Status with Amendments | as above but with links to amendments proposed |
| Committees | committees to which the bill has been referred; links to other bills considered by the same committees |
| Related House Committee Documents | links to committee documents such as hearing transcripts, witness lists, statements, etc |
| Amendments | links to the text of proposed amendments |
| Related Bill Details | links of other bills and resolutions closely related to the current bill |
| Subjects (CRS Index Terms) | links to standardized index terms used by the Congressional Research Service; may be used in Subject Term search box |
| Cosponsors | list of cosponsor names and links to other bills the given Members have sponsored or cosponsored |
| CRS Summary | summary of the content of the legislation prepared by the Congressional Research Service; usually not done until after the bill is reported from committee and again at later stages |
| Text of Legislation | links to text of all versions of the legislation |
Most items are available in BSS the day after a bill is introduced. Status information is updated the day after a change has occurred. Index terms, short titles, and summaries are available as soon as possible, but since they are prepared by hand, much depends on the complexity of the legislation and the overall amount of legislative activity.
Please note that any "search" button on the BSS page may be clicked to start a search. Please note also that clicking any "clear" button erases all input you have given and all selections you have made.
If you know the bill, amendment, or public law number you are looking for, simply type it into the Bill, Amendment, or Public Law Number input box. Each number begins with an alphabetic designation of the type of legislation and its chamber of origin and is completed by a sequence number. (Public law numbers also include the number of the Congress in which it became law).
| Prefix: | Definition: | Examples: |
| HR | bill originating in the House of Representatives | h.r. 120 |
| S | bill originating in the Senate | S5 |
| HRES | simple House resolution | HRES221 |
| SRES | simple Senate resolution | S.Res. 12 |
| HJRES | joint resolution originating in the House | h.j.res.150 |
| SJRES | joint resolution originating in the Senate | sjres212 |
| HCONRES | concurrent resolution originating in the House | h.con.Res. 5 |
| SCONRES | concurrent resolution originating in the Senate | s.con.res.45 |
| PL | bill or joint resolution that has become public law | pl 107-25 |
These prefixes may be in upper or lower case, with or without periods, and with or without spaces.
Further explanations of bill types may be found at the Senate website.
If you are interested in finding a range of legislation based on certain criteria, look below the Bill Number input box for six other ways to search. These searches can combined to narrow the results list. If, for instance, you were interested in legislation sponsored by your Representative that have become public law, you can select the Representative's name in the Sponsor selection box and "public law" in the Stage in Legislative Process selection box. If you are interested in legislation sponsored by both Senators from your state, you can select both names in the Sponsor selection box. Here are some notes on each type of search:
It is not necessary to use quotation marks to indicate a phrase. Thus, you need type only: national parks, not: "national parks" to retrieve BSS information about national parks.
A search on some words may not give you the results you expect. For instance, a search for death penalty would miss legislation that uses the term capital punishment instead. In forming your search, think of synonyms and other variations. Advanced users may want to scroll to the bottom of the BSS page and use the controlled vocabulary of the Standard Subject Term search.
The order of the search results is based on a "relevancy ranking algorithm" inherent in the search engine software. The meaning of this term is found in the above link.
Sponsor/Co-Sponsor
All Members of the selected Congress are listed in the selection boxes. Multiple Members may be selected by holding the CTRL and clicking on names. If you choose multiple names, you will usually want to use the default Boolean operator OR, which means to search for legislation sponsored by any of the Members selected. If you choose AND, you will get only legislation sponsored by all the Members selected.
You can also choose to search for sponsors, co-sponsors, or both. Every bill has only one sponsor, though other Members may choose to sign on as co-sponsors.
In this selection box, you can search for legislation that has been referred to one or more committees. Committee names may change from one Congress to another, though there is not usually a lot of change. This selection box is populated with committees and sub-committees only when activity on a bill has occured in them.
In this selection box, you can search for legislation based on the stage in the legislative process it has achieved. Thus, if you want a list of bills that have passed the Senate, simply click on passed/agreed to in Senate. This selection box is populated with stages only as bills actually achieve a given stage. Thus, for instance, if no bill has been vetoed by the President, you will not find a selection for vetoed bills. In the early days of a new Congress, there will be relatively few stages listed, as new legislation has only begun to work its way through. As with other searches, stages may be combined.
Date of Introduction
Self-explanatory.
Standard Subject Term
This should be used only by advanced researchers. Note that the Legislative Indexing Vocabulary reflects the current list of subjects and so may not be useful for earlier Congresses.
Type of Legislation
Self-explanatory.