Reading Legislative History

This lesson will teach you how to read information from legislative history, the next step after gathering the materials as described in the CALI Lesson Federal Legislative History Research - Compiled Legislative History, which you should complete first. Additionally, this lesson will help you find just the intent behind specific language of a law or statute.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:

1. Identify important portions of a statute's legislative history by examining the amendment history accompanying a statutory section.
2. List the sequential steps to efficiently identify the most important portions of the legislative history to determine legislative intent.
3. Evaluate whether to consult floor debates to determine legislative intent.