POLS 454W - Legal Research and Writing

Congressionally mandated reports are defined as those reports that are required by statute to be submitted by Federal agencies to the Senate, the House of Representatives, or to congressional committees or subcommittees. Agencies must now also submit these reports electronically to the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) after first submitting to Congress, committees, or subcommittees as they do currently.
Not all congressionally mandated reports are required to be submitted to GPO for publication. The congressionally mandated reports in GovInfo are those that are in scope of Public Law 117-263, the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, sections 7241-7248, cited as the “Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act.”

Find information on health, careers, business opportunities, the military, science, technology, travel, nutrition, and more.
Find books, maps, microfiche, journals, and periodicals.
Get access to digital Government information resources, historical publications dating back to the early days of the United States

GovInfo is free U.S. Government information for all.
GovInfo is a service of the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO), which is a Federal agency in the legislative branch.
GovInfo provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.

The U.S. Courts were created under Article III of the Constitution to administer justice fairly and impartially, within the jurisdiction established by the Constitution and Congress. This website will help you learn more about the Judicial Branch and its work.

The Court is the highest tribunal in the Nation for all cases and controversies arising under the Constitution or the laws of the United States. As the final arbiter of the law, the Court is charged with ensuring the American people the promise of equal justice under law and, thereby, also functions as guardian and interpreter of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and such number of Associate Justices as may be fixed by Congress. The number of Associate Justices is currently fixed at eight (28 U. S. C. §1). Power to nominate the Justices is vested in the President of the United States, and appointments are made with the advice and consent of the Senate.

Oyez (pronounced OH-yay)—a free law project from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII), Justia, and Chicago-Kent College of Law—is a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone. It is the most complete and authoritative source for all of the Court’s audio since the installation of a recording system in October 1955. Oyez offers transcript-synchronized and searchable audio, plain-English case summaries, illustrated decision information, and full-text Supreme Court opinions (through Justia). Oyez also provides detailed information on every justice throughout the Court’s history and offers a panoramic tour of the Supreme Court building, including the chambers of several justices.

This is a large PDF. It dates from 2014 and was prepared by the Congressional Research Service.

This website is from the United States Senate. It contains links to all areas of the Constitution. It includes links to landmark legislation (for example the Thirteenth Amendment). It also contains links to annotated Constitutions.

This resource is from the Library of Congress. It outlines the steps for tracing bills, public laws and Statutes at Large. This is considered a Secondary Source.

The Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR) provides a way of exploring the Code of Federal Regulations as it exists today and at points in time back to January 2017.
The eCFR allows you to: browse the Code of Federal Regulations as it existed at any point in time; compare the regulations as they existed on any two dates; view a timeline of how the CFR content has changed; search for specific terms; and,
subscribe to changes in the regulations.

The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the departments and agencies of the Federal Government. It is divided into 50 titles representing broad areas subject to federal regulation.
The Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR) is a continuously updated online version of the CFR and provides enhanced features that are not part of the published CFR.

The Federal Register is the official journal of the federal government of the United States that contains government agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices. It is published every weekday, except on federal holidays.