Legislative History: The record of all legislative actions occurring in order to pass a bill. The steps taken in this procedure include: bill introduction, committee hearings, floor debate, amendments (committee and floor) to the bill, enrollment, action taken by the governor (veto, enactment without action, or approval), and the assignment of an act number.

The following areas of this website can assist in researching the Legislative History.

From the menu bar at the top of most pages, you can access Laws section of our site. From there, you can navigate the Table of Contents to the Louisiana Laws, jump directly to a specific section of law, or perform a text search across one or more law bodies. At the end of most sections, a paragraph will include the Act number(s) which enacted and modified that section of the law (e.g., Acts 1986, No. 697).

From the menu bar at the top of most pages, you can access the Bills section of our site. From there, you can pick a legislative session and identify the legislative instrument of interest. You can locate instruments by type (HB, SB, etc) or by Act number. If you wish to locate by Act number, simply select Act as the instrument type.

From the menu bar at the top of most pages, you can access the Session Information pages. These pages will link to a variety of session reports and publications which may be of use to you. This includes, but is not limited to:

• The Resume' numerically lists each act that passed in a given legislative session, along with a digest and the original House or Senate bill number.
• The Legislative Calendar provides a chronological history of each instrument. This includes dates of action, Journal pages where actions are recorded, whether the instrument was amended in committee or on the floor, a vote tally, the act number, and the effective date.
• The House and Senate each keep their own separate Journals. The Journals are arranged chronologically by the days in which the legislature met while in session. The information contained within the Journals is arranged in the order in which action was taken on the House or Senate floor. If the action was the adoption of an amendment, the entry will provide the text of that amendment. If a vote on the floor of either house was a record vote, the entry will provide a roll call list with the vote of each member. Votes on final passage on the floor of each house are record votes. Committee votes are not record votes. The reports of legislative committees are noted in the Journals, but the vote on reporting each instrument is noted only by the number of votes for and against, and not by roll call.

WHERE TO FIND MORE ASSISTANCE:

• Each parish court usually has a law library with copies of the Resume', Legislative Calendar, and Journals. Most of the parish public libraries have the same publications.
• Louisiana State University, Southern University, Tulane University, and Loyola University have law school libraries which carry Louisiana’s legislative publications.
• The State Library of Louisiana has a Louisiana Section reference room. They can be reached at (225) 342-4914 or at ladept@state.lib.la.us for e-mail access. Their website is www.state.lib.la.us.

HOUSE AND SENATE SERVICES:

The following items may be obtained from the Docket of the House or Senate:

1. Legislative instruments: bills, amendments, digests, fiscal notes
2. Legislative Calendar pages
3. Journal pages
4. Minutes of committee meetings
5. Audio tapes of the proceedings of committee meetings. 1998 to the present date are available from House or Senate Docket. Prior to that date, audio tapes are available at the Office of Archives & Records Management, La. Secretary of State: 225-922-1209.
   
   Floor debate is not transcribed, nor are minutes of floor debate prepared in print. However, beginning with the 1999 Regular Session, audio or video of House committee and floor debates can be viewed here.

House Docket (for House instruments): (225) 342-6458

Senate Docket (for Senate instruments): (225) 342-2365

On the menu bar at the top of most pages, click Laws.

You can view the laws by one of three ways:

1. by a SPECIFIC law body and section
2. by conducting a text search of the laws database
3. by navigating a Table of Contents

To conduct a text search, first select the body (or bodies) of law you want to search. (You may select as few or as many as you would like.) Once you have selected one or more law bodies, enter the text you want to search. Click the "Examples" link to see several ways to refine your search.