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Legal Research

Basic guide to finding legal information

Texas Legislation

  • Texas Constitution online
     
  • Information on introduced bills- is available through the Legislative Information at the Texas Legislative Reference Library. The Legislative Reference Library of Texas also maintains a record of which articles and sections in the Vernon’s Texas Annotated Statutes and Codes are being affected by bills passed during the session.
     
  • General and Special Session Laws of Texas- 
This set is similar to Vernon’s Texas Session Law Service, but provides retrospective access to bill numbers and text of bills as they passed the legislature. It is an important tool for compiling Texas Legislative histories. Unlike U.S. legislative history, Texas legislative history is not written and must be compiled by the researcher. For a document explaining how to compile a history, go to http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/legis/intent/LegHistory2.pdf
After being passed by the State Legislature, the bills are codified. Eventually, the statues will all be codified. 
  • Texas House and Senate Journals- 
These publications are the official records of the proceedings of each House, but contain no debate. They are indexed in the bound volumes on the 5th floor and provide a basic history of bills.

Secondary Legal Sources

 

Major Texas newspapers and national newspapers are indexed in many of the online databases. 

A Reference Guide to Texas law and Legal History —  KFT1275 .R44

This book provides an in-depth guide to Texas legislative and legal research.