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How to Locate a House or Senate Report

Committee reports are considered to be one of the most important documents of legislative history research. These reports are produced by the House and Senate committees that address legislative and other policy issues, investigations, and internal committee matters. Each report can be identified by standardized citation that includes the Congress, chamber (House or Senate), and report number.

Watch the video for a tutorial on how to locate a House or Senate report, then read through the guide below.

Where to Find a Committee Report

HeinOnline contains two collections that include House and Senate Reports. Let’s explore the various ways users can search for committee reports across HeinOnline.

From the Welcome Page

For this example, let’s search for House Report 330 of the 111th Congress. From the HeinOnline welcome page, enter 111-330 in the search bar and select the Just search for option.

screenshot of one-box search for House Report

From the results page, select House Reports from the Section Type facet on the left-hand side.

screenshot of search results, highlighting Refine Your Search options
screenshot of Refine Your Search pop-up highlighting Section Type

The first result is House Report 111-330.

screenshot of search result highlighting House Report 111-330

From the U.S. Congressional Serial Set

The U.S. Congressional Serial Set includes a Citation Lookup Tool on the database homepage equipped with a series of drop-down options allowing users to enter the document type, Congress, and document number.

screenshot of citation lookup tool in U.S. Congressional Serial Set

The search will bring users to the exact House report in the Serial Set.

screenshot of House Report information in the Serial Set

Click the hyperlinked title to view the report.

screenshot of House Report

From the U.S. Federal Legislative History Library

HeinOnline’s U.S. Federal Legislative History Library includes more than 2,500 compiled federal legislative histories which include the full text of the public law, bill versions, congressional hearings, committee reports, and other supporting documentation. To search within this database for a committee report, users would need to determine what public law the committee report is tied to. In this example, the House report we are looking for is linked to the legislative history for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

From the database homepage, users can browse by publication title, public law number, or popular name. Let’s browse by Popular Name and navigate to P using the A-Z Index.

screenshot of browse by Popular Name in U.S. Federal Legislative History Library

Next find the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act listed alphabetically. Select the title to view a list of available legislative histories.

screenshot of list of available legislative histories

Let’s open Health Care Reform: A Legislative History of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Public Law No. 111-148 (2010). Select Cumulative Contents to view the tagging and indexing for each volume.

screenshot of legislative history highlighting Cumulative Contents option

Browse through the content to find House Report 111-330, or use the CTRL + F keys to search for 111-330.

screenshot of House Report listing in legislative history

Table of Contents