United States Federal Law - Free Websites

Official. The official code is published every six years, with updates in between. This cite does not have the most current update. Goes back to 1994.

Unofficial. Current within a week or so. Search the Code by subject or by Popular Name.

Unofficial. This version is generated from the most recent official version made available by the US House of Representatives. Search by citation, subject, popular names or browse table of contents.

The History of Bills lists legislative actions on bills that are reported in the Congressional Record. Coverage begins with 1983 (98th Congress).

Congressional bills are legislative proposals from the House of Representatives and Senate within the United States Congress. Coverage begins with 1993 (103rd Congress).

The United States Statutes at Large, typically referred to as the Statutes at Large, is the permanent collection of all laws and resolutions enacted during each session of Congress. Coverage is 1951 (82 Congress) to 2013 (113 Congress).

1789-1951

Links to: How Our Laws are Made (House), Enactment of a Law (Senate), and a Congressional Glossary (gives definitions of words used in the legislative process).

By the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.

Definitions of types of legislation and bills.

Donald Hirsch, 2d Ed., 1989, GPO, 122 p. (PDF). Posted on the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C. website.

Learn how a statute is organized and how to read a statute.

Instructions on how to validate the certificate on the electronic document.

The Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) provides states with an outcomes-based approach to the authentication and preservation of electronic legal material. The goals of the authentication and preservation program outlined in the Act are to enable end-users to verify the trustworthiness of the legal material they are using and to provide a framework for states to preserve legal material in perpetuity in a manner that allows for permanent access.

The Act requires that official electronic legal material be:
1. Authenticated, by providing a method to determine that it is unaltered;
2. Preserved, either in electronic or print form; and
3. Accessible, for use by the public on a permanent basis.

The U.S. House of Representatives offers streaming video feeds of the House Floor Proceedings dating back to the beginning of the 111th Congress. Click Video to watch each session, or click Summary to view the text-only version of the proceedings.

Stream live Senate floor proceedings while a meeting is in progress. Search, watch, and download previous proceedings starting with the 2nd session of the 112th Congress.

Internet access to sessions of the House and the Senate.

In the upper right, Click on Subscribe. You can subscribe to regular updates by RSS and e-mail. Get updates on bills presented to the President, andHouse and Senate floor activity.