I’m seeking information on where to look, what to ask, in trying to come up with cites for legislative intent.
Where does one look for the history and background of a given statute? Before a statute becomes law, is it discussed, debated, etc…and is there a record fo that somewhere? How do I trace that?
I’m not sure how the legislative process works where you are. Here, if you wanted to learn more about the specific intent or policy position underlying an Act, you would generally look at:
They’re available on line here. I’d be surprised if that’s not the case in your jurisdiction too.
Legislative intent is a somewhat vague phrase and the sources for it are vast. In no particular order, there’s
[ul]
[li]Floor speeches about the legislation in the Congressional Record,[/li][li]Testimony in committee hearings regarding the proposed legislation,[/li][li]Committee reports in each house of Congress about the proposed legislation,[/li][li]Any amendments to the proposed legislation which may have been accepted or rejected (the latter can contribute to an argument about negative intent. E.g., we know the intent was not XYZ because they firmly rejected amendment ABC.)[/li][li]Public or private correspondence regarding the legislation by its principal authors. For example, the Federalist Papers and private letters amongst the founding fathers are commonly used to illuminate the intent of the authors of the Constitution.[/li][/ul]
That all applies to federal and constitutional law, of course. If you’re talking about state law you’ll have to look at the analogues of those things at the state level.
There is a Legislative Intent Service where you can pay the company to compile these materials. I did it once for a litigation matter. We were getting into the intent of changes in partnership law. I put in a request and explained the problem. I got a binder full of speeches, memos, correspondence between legislators and the Attorney General and Secretary of State, etc. It was very nice and helped us win an argument.
Just for the record, while all the above are substantially better answers than this and definitely more help in doing a thorough research of legislative intent, it’s worth noting that in some U.S. States (New York being the example I’m familiar with), the first few sections of a law are “functional” – official title, proper codification, etc. – and one of them is generally a “Statement of Legislative Intent,” written directly into the law.
Right. One would go to the Record of Proceedings that most legislatures keep, which includes not just a minute but a literal recording/transcript of the whole day’s work including debates and votes plus stuff introduced by the debater, and to the committee’s file on the bill, which includes the correspondence received from interested parties and the testimony at hearings, as well as the reports filed, etc. The Daily Journal, Legislative/Congressional Record, whatever it’s called in your jurisdiction, is a public document that can be obtained from the legislative branch’s Clerk or Librarian and for certain statutes it can be one voluminous task – some involve thousands of pages of written record and many days’ worth of debate transcript.
Polycarp has touched on the “Statement of Intent” in New York. In the Federal level, this role is often fulfilled by a statute section titled “Findings” that purports to explain what is it that caused this legislation to be filed and what they’re trying to accomplish. In the legislature I work for, we have two modes: one is the “Exposition”, basically a Statement but one that, though part of the bill and part of the published Act once it’s signed by the Guv, is NOT itself codified, that is it’s not part of the enforceable enactment; and the other then is a Declaration of Public Policy which DOES become part of the Code, as it includes explicit instructions as to what are the agencies expected to do about this law and how should it be construed.
Now, “Findings”/Expository sections too often are of the nature of “…everybody knows video games corrupt children, therefore…” “…it is self-evident that the Family is threatened by the acceptance of alternative lifestyles, therefore…” “…surely if even one single life is saved, nobody can deny the expense will be worth it, therefore…” " and so on so it is important to read the debate and the record of proceedings to try and figure out what were they really thinking.
(Of course, if the language of the law is clear, explicit and unambiguous, and passes constitutional muster, even if not what they originally meant you are stuck enforcing and obeying it until the legislature corrects their mistake…)
A loosely related concept, at least for the Feds, is “staff commmentary”.
It’s more applicable to regulations, where the FCC, say, puts out regs to implement some new law & then publishes staff commentary to explain to folks who’ll have to comply just how they intend to interpret the regs (& law).
While not directly legislative intent, the staff often does a lot of legislative intent research on the way to writing their commentary. That can quick-start your research.
I’m not quite sure if the OP is looking for the types of information which constitute legislative intent, or if the OP is looking for actually where to find those materials.
The former question has been answered very well already, but as to the latter, if you’re looking for information on Federal laws enacted after about 1993 or so, you can use thomas.loc.gov to locate bill text, committee and conference reports (which are separate documents that are intended to explain the effect of the bill, but are not issued for every bill), the Congressional Record, and a couple other useful resources. Unfortunately, it is not a very user friendly site.
The more robust option would be to go to a Federal depository library. They are all over the place and your nearest one can be tracked down here . They will have all information you could want, plus private publications like Congressional Quarterly which, on a subscription basis, offers detailed summaries of what happens at committee markups and stuff like that. (To be clear, Congressional Quarterly isn’t a government document found in a depository library, but any library that is a depository library will undoubtedly subscribe to Congressional Quarterly.)
For Federal laws, the Federal Register sometimes contains commentary or reports discussing the purpose behind laws. It can be searched, for free, at:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html
Sometimes it is easier to first search google for “[issue] federal Register” and locate other documents which refer to the FR, because if you have a particular date to look for its a lot easier to find stuff.
From this link you can also access Congressional debates from the Congressional Record and House Journal as well as lots of other material.
I think this is more true of regulations put forth by executive agencies. (Congress passes a general law, and directs an agency such as OSHA to to make regulations that cover all the details.)
Possibly. But I know of at least some specific instances where an extensive discussion of history and intent behind a (fairly specific) Federal law passed by Congress is listed in the Federal Register.