This article will show how to locate the text of a public law using its popular name in the U.S. Federal Legislative History Library.
Browse by Options
To locate the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act text, begin by navigating to the Popular Name option on the database homepage.
Next, navigate to the letter P using the A-Z index provided.
Locate the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, listed alphabetically, or use your Ctrl + f function to search for the Act. Click the title to see all available legislative histories.
Let’s open the first title, Health Care Reform: A Legislative History of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Public Law No. 111-148 (2010). Click the Cumulative Contents link to open up all the documents indexed in the title.
Usually, within a compiled legislative history, the documents, such as the text and any codifications, will be listed first after the table of contents and indexes.
Click Page 119 to view the text of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories
Users can also locate the text of a public law using the Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories Database, found within the U.S. Federal Legislative History Database. This print resource was converted to an online database to help users easily determine whether a legislative history of a particular public law has been compiled. It also provides related documents, books, or scholarly articles.
From this subcollection, choose Popular Name of Public Law from the drop-down menu and enter Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
View the first result to see a bibliography of the Act. Next, click the Statutes at Large citation to be brought to the text of the public law.
For more information on how to navigate through the U.S. Federal Legislative History database, check out our dedicated LibGuide.