To finish compiling your legislative history, it may be helpful to consult some of these additional documents:
A companion bill is a bill that is filed in one chamber that is identical or very similar to a bill filed in the other chamber of the Legislature. Researching the legislative history of a companion bill may provide information or insight into the history of the bill on which you are compiling a legislative history.
To find companion bills, look at the Bill History file, which you consulted in Step 3. For bills from the 71st Legislature (1989) to the present, you can find any companion bills on the Bill Lookup section of the Texas Legislature Online website by clicking on "Companion" or "Companions" in the top menu bar.
Using the bill in our search example from this guide (HB 3249 from the 80th Legislature), you can see that an identical companion bill, SB 915, was introduced in the Senate.
The House and Senate Journals record the official proceedings of the Texas House of Representatives and the Texas Senate. In general, the House and Senate Journals do not contain printed debates on bills. However, the House and Senate Journals may contain items of interest to researchers, such as statements of legislative intent.
TLO Actions Tab: TLO typically includes links to the House and Senate Journal entries for a particular bill under the Actions tab.
Journals Online:
Print: Most House (1848–present) and Senate (1848–present) Journals are available here at the Tarlton Law Library; some may be housed in the Rare Books collection, so you will want to check their location if the journals are older than 1965.
If the Actions Tab does not provide links, look up your bill number in the bill history index, which is located in the last volume of the journals for a particular session. Here you will find all of the actions taken on your bill and page numbers on which they are located. If the bill was considered in both chambers of the Legislature, you will need to review the bill history in both the House and Senate Journals.
Examples of House and Senate Journal entries can be found in the examples used in the Bill History section of this guide.
Minutes summarize committee proceedings and record the time and place of each meeting, members present, bills considered, witness lists, and votes taken. Minutes typically do not contain transcriptions of discussions or testimony.
75th Legislature (1997) to date: available from Texas Legislature Online: Committees
63rd–78th Legislatures (1973–2003):
Scanned House, Senate, and Joint committee minutes are available from the Legislative Reference Library of Texas.
The House Research Organization (HRO) is a nonpartisan source of impartial information on legislation and issues considered by the Texas Legislature. The HRO is an independent administrative department of the Texas House of Representatives.
During a legislative session, HRO prepares a Daily Floor Report, which includes analyses of all legislation, except local and consent bills, scheduled for floor debate on the daily House calendar. (I.e., HRO analyzes only bills on the General State, Major State, Emergency, and Joint Resolutions calendars.) Bill analyses prepared by the HRO reflect the version of the bill as it was reported by a House committee to the full House of Representatives. It does not reflect any later changes. Components of an HRO bill analysis include the Subject, Committee, Votes, Witnesses, Background, Digest, what Supporters Say, what Opponents Say, and Notes regarding legislative history or similar bills considered in the same or previous sessions.
Bill analyses from the 74th Regular Session forward are available on the House Research Organization's website. You can receive updates via email, Facebook, Twitter, and RSS.
House Research Organization bill analyses are also typically available from the Bill Lookup section of the Texas Legislature Online and from the Legislative Reference Library's Legislative Archive System. When looking up a bill's legislative history, you will see any existing "HRO Bill Analysis" at the bottom of the TLO's "Text" tab, listed with "Additional Documents."
Standing or special legislative committees often issue reports of studies in the "interim" (the time period between legislative sessions). These reports can be useful resources and provide discussion and background of an issue prior to a bill's passage, or discussion and monitoring of a bill's implementation after it is passed. Thus understanding the legislature's intent in passing legislation may be derived from looking at interim reports after a bill has passed.
Interim reports can be found using the Legislative Reference Library's online catalog. They are listed by subject, title, chair, and call number.
The Legislative Reference Library has also scanned in the full text of many versions of interim reports, going all the way back to the 1st Legislative Session (1846). These online reports are available on the library's Legislative Reports page, and are searchable by session, subject, and keyword.
Daily Legislative Clipping Service is a service of the Legislative Reference Library which may be another useful source of background information and historical perspective on a bill. It includes articles from more than thirty state and national newspapers, dating back to the 1920s. These clips may be searched on computer terminals located in the Legislative Reference Library. Newspaper clippings from the last two months are openly available on the Legislative Reference Library's Newspaper Clipping Service page. In addition, you may view these clips by bill number in the Legislative Archive System for bills passed in the 74th Legislature (1995) to the present.
At times, the legislature may command a state agency or state commission to research and report on a particular issue. These directed studies often result in legislation, and reading the studies may help researchers determine legislative intent.
These reports can be found using the Legislative Reference Library's online catalog, and are listed by the agency or commission name, report or study title, and subject. Some of the reports are also listed by the legislative session and the bill number.