Research Guides: Federal Legislative Research: Home

Legislative Process

The legislative branch is the lawmaking branch of the government. The federal government has a bi-cameral legislature comprised of the House of Representatives and the Senate; both of which are elected directly.

The House of Representatives has 435 members, each of whom represent a district which is determined by population. Each representative serves a two-year term.

In the Senate, the representation is not based on population, but rather each state is represented by two senators that serve a six year term. The election of senators is staggered so that approximately one-third of the senate is up for re-election at any one time.

Helpful Resources

Legislative Flow Chart
This chart documents that process of a bill becoming a statute in the U.S. Code.
U.S. Code Comparison Sheet
Compare U.S. Code, U.S. Code Annotated, and U.S. Code Service.

CALI Lessons

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Introduction to Federal & State Statutes
This 1 hour lesson discusses the basic structure of statutes and the resources in which they appear.
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Minnesota is often used as an example because the creators of the lesson work at University of Minnesota. Also, the lesson is dated (states there are only 50 Titles of the U.S. Code when there are now 51.
Finding Statutes
This 45-minute lesson is designed to teach the basics of finding statutes and provide review exercises to reinforce the knowledge.
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Help assignment, but uses a "decision tree" model that loops the student back to chapters, which can be exhausting. Might want to choose the "linear" option for completing the assignment. Also has non-graded essays at the end.
Forms of Federal Statutory Publicaton
This 25-minute lesson will help you understand the four forms of statutory publications.
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Quick and helpful introduction to the federal legislative publications.
Codification
This 20-minute lesson will introduce you to how codes are created, organized and published.
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Quick and easy explanation of Codification. Especially helpful if used in conjunction with either "Forms of Federal Statutory Publication" or "Introduction to the Federal & State Statutes" lesson.