Congress will frequently hold hearings before a bill is introduced. These hearings -- generally held by either a standing or special committee in one of the chambers -- can be used to discuss controversial situations, to explain or help determine the need for legislative intervention, or to bring useful information to the Congress prior to its consideration of a particular bill. 

There are three different types of committees:

• Standing committees - permanent Congressional bodies that are assigned a particular area of expertise and routinely handle all bills in that area (e.g. Ways & Means).

• Special committees - formed to handle technical or complex issues (e.g. the Senate Special Committee on Aging). Once a special committee has delivered its report to Congress, it is dissolved.

• Conference committees - used to mediate differences between House and Senate versions of a bill. 

Although not all hearings are published, those that are contain transcripts of the testimony (questions asked by the legislators and answered by witnesses); exhibits submitted by witnesses or other interested parties; and occasionally, a reprint of a draft of the proposed bill.  It is important to remember, when relying on statements from Congressional hearings in making a legislative history argument, to be careful to note the identity of the speaker.   Testimony of a senator or representative sponsoring the legislation will be much more persuasive than that of the representative of a biased special interest group, which carries little (if any) weight.

Published hearings are printed by the Government Printing Office. To find the citation for a hearing, use an index such as CIS U.S. Congressional Committee Hearings Index (Z1223 .Z9, 9^th Floor); the Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (Z1223 .A18, 6 ^th Floor); or, for more recent (1994-present) documents, the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications on the Web.

CIS/Index (KF49 .C62, 6^th Floor) includes citations to microfiche which contain the full texts of congressional hearings since 1970.  Other full text sources for hearings include:

• Lexis - from the Legal tab, select Legislation & Politics, then U.S. Congress, then Committee Hearing Transcripts, then Federal Document Clearinghouse Congressional Testimony or Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Hearings Summaries for transcripts covering the 103^rd Congress forward (1993 - present).
  

• Westlaw - full texts of hearings from the 103^rd Congress forward (1993 - present) are available in the U.S. Testimony database (database ID USTESTIMONY)

• LexisNexis Congressional, (formerly Congressional Universe) from the Library's Electronic Resources page (accessible on campus or off campus with valid network ID and password) - full texts for almost all hearings from the 103^rd Congress forward (1993 - present)

• GPO Access - full text transcripts of selected hearings from the 104^th Congress forward (1995 - present)

• Selected hearings can sometimes be found on House Committee and Senate Committee Web sites.

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