Compiling a Maine Legislative History
Legislative history is the record of the actions and documents produced by the lawmaking process. Legislative history research is a specific type of legal research which can be used by attorneys and judges to interpret statutes, by state agencies to inform their drafting of rules and regulations, by legislators to inform their promulgation and consideration of new legislation, or by anyone who wants background information or context about the passage of a law or the development of law on a particular topic. When used to interpret statutes, legislative history might clarify the problem that lawmakers were trying to solve or the intent of how the law should be applied.
When compiling a legislative history, first identify the statutes, session laws, or bills that are relevant to your research. Next, search for the materials that document the passage of each bill through the legislative process. The Legislative Document (L.D.) number is generally the clearest way to identify a bill and will help you find the associated records that constitute the legislative history. If a bill is enacted, it becomes a session law and is given a chapter number. There are several types of session laws but the Public Law (P.L.) is the most common. Since the numbering of L.D.s and session law chapters starts over again with each new Legislature, it is important to know the year as well as the number. For more background on how a bill becomes law, see Maine's Path of Legislation.
The exact method and tools you use to compile a legislative history will depend on the legislation you are researching, the years when the legislation was considered, and the information with which you are starting. Reference staff at the library are happy to assist you if you have questions or do not have access to the records that constitute the history.
A legislative history might already be compiled on your topic:
- See our collection of topical legislative histories
- Individual legislative histories for all bills from 1981 to 2022 are available in the Law and Legislative Digital Library
Also, the law library has compiled brief infographic guides to assist you with your legislative history research:
Identify session laws to be researched
If you are researching a statute section in the printed volumes published by West or on the Legislature’s website, look first at the history line immediately following the text of the statutory section and list all of the Public Law chapter citations. For changes to statutes going back to 1965 you can also consult the Statutory History tool in the Law and Legislative Digital Library for easy access to digitized public laws and online legislative histories.
If the section has been renumbered you will find a derivation list in West’s Maine Revised Statutes Annotated following the historical notes. The public law chapters listed in the derivation are also part of the legislative history of a statutory section. When the history line includes a citation to a prior codification, for example R.S. c. 3, §25 with no year, you need to consult the previous codification. You may trace a section from one codification to the next previous codification until you reach 1821. If you see a year and chapter number, but no R.S. cite, that is a cite for a public law. The earliest public law listed is the original enactor for the section. Prior codifications of the Maine statutes are available online through the Law and Legislative Digital Library.
The section histories in the online statutes contain no derivations. There are no citations to chapters prior to 1964 or to the 1954 codification, and there is no indication of prior placement under other numbering in the code.
Make a list of all the session laws you have found. If you are interested in only specific words or paragraphs, narrow your list to the laws that affect only those words or paragraphs. Using the historical notes in the bound West volumes and the texts of the session laws can help. If you are researching enacted laws on a subject, find the year and chapter number of the session laws you want to research. Subject access to enacted laws is provided in the Laws of Maine which has cumulative and annual indexes or the Enacted Law Digest (since 1997). For additional ways to search legislation by subject see the sections below on identifying bill numbers. It is helpful to look at each session law to confirm that you have the correct law, to see the scope of the law, and to read the title of the law.
Identify bills and amendments
Bills are most often identified by the Legislative Document (L.D.) number. Amendments are most easily identified by the filing number (e.g. H-32 or S-101), but are also referred to by terms such as Committee Amendment "A" or Senate Amendment "F". The L.D. is the unit for which you will find Statements of Fact, amendments, the committee file, debate and occasionally a study report. The year of the legislation and the L.D. number are the key to retrieving these pieces. How you find the L.D. and amendment numbers depends on what you know and the year of the bill. Here are some ways to find them.
L.D. and amendment numbers
- Search the compiled legislative history pages in the Law and Legislative Digital Library by chapter law, L.D. number, paper number, or subject
- Search the Legislature’s LawMaker (2001- ), Bill Tracker (1985- ), Bill and Enacted Law Text Search (1985- ) systems
- Use the Chapter/LD Cross-Reference Tables for years 1965 to 1986
- Consult the History and Final Disposition pamphlets from 1942 forward. Some Special Sessions are not included. History and Final Disposition volumes from 1947 to present are available online. Access varies by year, but you can always find bills by at least one subject and sometimes by chapter number, L.D. paper number, or committee.
- Use the subject index to the Legislative Record
L.D. numbers only
The Laws of Maine from 1979 forward print the L.D. number on each session law, but no information about amendments is given and only enacted laws are included.
Find sponsors’ statements of fact
Starting in 1971 you will find a statement at the end of each L.D. that has been approved by the sponsor and briefly describes the bill. Since 1979 all amendments have a statement. It is labeled either Statement of Fact or Summary. The courts have accepted this statement as evidence of the intent of the legislation and it is often the clearest statement of the purpose. You should also check for statements on legislation prior to 1971, but they are rare.
There are collections of Maine Legislative Documents at a number of libraries in Maine, including our collection which starts in 1835. Bills from 1868 to present are available in the Law and Legislative Digital Library. The Legislature's Bill Tracker system includes the full-text of bills from the 116th Legislature forward.
Research committee hearings
Committee files are available for most bills from 1983 (111th Legislature) forward although early years have less material. The committee master files contain written hearing testimony, fiscal notes, and committee votes. They may also contain analysis by the committee analyst, statements from state agencies, lobbyists, and citizens, drafts of amendments, and other materials considered at work sessions.
Although you may see reference to a committee report, this term refers to the committee’s recommended action and not an actual report. The Law Library has digitized all committee files back to the 111th Legislative Session (1983). These files can be emailed as PDFs. Contact a reference librarian to request a committee file.
Recording of public hearings began in the 127th Legislature (2015-2016). Committee deliberations are not transcribed. Committee recordings can be found the Legislature's website. Click on Calendar. Find the day and the committee. Click on the audio symbol, and then click on the word Play (there might be a delay in the page loading).
Research floor debate and proceedings
The Law and Legislative Digital Library’s expanding legislative history collection gives you links directly to the text of debate on a specific piece of legislation.
Legislative debate and roll call votes are published in the Legislative Record starting in 1897. The House Record and Senate Record for recent sessions are on the House and Senate websites. Sometimes you will find no debate and frequently there are no roll call votes on a specific L.D.
For most years you will find debate using the Legislative Record indexes. The indexes provide access by subject or by key words from the title of the bill. Remember that the subject and title of the bill may be much broader than the subject matter of the section you are researching. More recently you can find pages by the L.D. number. For a few years (1987-88 at least) if your bill had any new drafts, you must check under the number for every draft. Until 1999 the bound volumes contain a separate index for each session of the Legislature. Starting in the 1993-94 biennium there is one index for all the sessions of each Legislature. Starting in 1997 the House and Senate Records are published separately each with its own index. The Record is first distributed as loose-leaf pages and publication of the bound Record may be delayed by several years.
When there is no index, you need to find the dates on which the L.D. was considered, or docket dates. The Library will help you identify dates and may have a worksheet noting the pages containing debate. The docket dates are available on the Legislature’s Bill Tracking system from 1986 forward and on the Legislature’s Lawmaker system for recent sessions. Scan the print or online House Record and Senate Record for each date, looking for the L.D. number you are researching or use the find command (Ctrl+F) in your browser.
Look for a study
The L.D. or the debate may indicate that the legislation is the result of a study, although only a few studies are conducted each year. In that case you will want to look for a study. Sometimes the proposed legislation is the only result of a study.
A study may be required by legislation, approved by the Legislative Council, or conducted by a government agency or task force. Starting in 1995 legislative study reports are available on the website of the Office of Policy and Legal Analysis (OPLA). Postings are not complete in the earlier years. Since 1941 the Library has collected all legislative study reports. Search the URSUS online catalog or talk with Library staff to locate copies of study reports (many reports have been digitized and are available online through the catalog). Sometimes searching the number of the Legislature, e.g. 118th, and a key word from the subject or committee name will bring up a list that can be easily scanned. Following a major revision a commission may write commentary that is printed as notes in West's Maine Revised Statutes Annotated following the pertinent section. A few study commissions have donated working papers which are available in the Library. Contact the Library if you wish to research papers related to the enactment of:
Criminal Code Revision (Title 17-A, P.L. 1975, ch. 499)
Insurance Code (Title 24-A, P.L. 1969, ch.132)
Juvenile Code (Title 15, Part 6, P.L. 1977, ch. 520)
Probate Code (Title 18-A, P.L. 1979, ch. 540)
Workers Compensation Reform (Title 39-A, P.L. 1991, ch. 885)
Additional research possibilities
News clippings
News articles provide background on an issue, are an indicator of public perception, and may refer to related legislation. The Library's newspaper clippings collection includes newspaper articles relating to legislation that can be accessed using the L.D. number or by broad topics. For the years 1981 to 2020 articles relevant to a particular L.D. can be found in the individual legislative histories in the Law and Legislative Digital Library. News clippings going back to the 1960s, which are related to specific bills, can be found using the Library's news clipping database (available only at the public computers in the library), or by contacting the Library.
Emergency preambles
Additional clues about the purpose of legislation may be found in the Emergency Preamble or Fiscal Note. Emergency preambles are printed at the beginning of legislation proposed as an emergency measure and appear on enacted laws, L.D.’s and amendments.
Fiscal notes
The Fiscal Note is usually printed at the end of a bill just before the Summary and does not appear on the enacted law. The Fiscal Note usually appears in a Committee Amendment rather than on the original bill and is also in the committee master file. This is the current practice, but procedures have varied over time. Fiscal information is rare prior to 1989.
Bill and enacted law summaries
Committee analysts prepare their own summaries of bills and enacted laws during each regular session. For the years 1981 to present bill and enacted law summaries for a particular L.D. can be found in the individual legislative histories in the Law and Legislative Digital Library. Recent summaries are available on the OPLA website and from the Office of Fiscal and Program Review for the Taxation and Appropriations Committees. The Library has summaries beginning in 1983.
Uniform Laws commentary
Maine’s law may be based on an existing law from another state, a uniform law, or a model law. You may want to consult Uniform Laws Annotated or other publications of model laws.
Updated 5/8/2024 A-Z List
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Legislative history is the record of the actions and documents produced by the lawmaking process. Legislative history research is a specific type of legal research which can be used by attorneys and judges to interpret statutes, by state agencies to inform their drafting of rules and regulations, by legislators to inform their promulgation and consideration of new legislation, or by anyone who wants background information or context about the passage of a law or the development of law on a particular topic. When used to interpret statutes, legislative history might clarify the problem that lawmakers were trying to solve or the intent of how the law should be applied. When compiling a legislative history, first identify the statutes, session laws, or bills that are relevant to your research. Next, search for the materials that document the passage of each bill through the legislative process. The Legislative Document (L.D.) number is generally the clearest way to identify a bill and will help you find the associated records that constitute the legislative history. If a bill is enacted, it becomes a session law and is given a chapter number. There are several types of session laws but the Public Law (P.L.) is the most common. Since the numbering of L.D.s and session law chapters starts over again with each new Legislature, it is important to know the year as well as the number. For more background on how a bill becomes law, see Maine's Path of Legislation. The exact method and tools you use to compile a legislative history will depend on the legislation you are researching, the years when the legislation was considered, and the information with which you are starting. Reference staff at the library are happy to assist you if you have questions or do not have access to the records that constitute the history. A legislative history might already be compiled on your topic:
Also, the law library has compiled brief infographic guides to assist you with your legislative history research: Identify session laws to be researched If you are researching a statute section in the printed volumes published by West or on the Legislature’s website, look first at the history line immediately following the text of the statutory section and list all of the Public Law chapter citations. For changes to statutes going back to 1965 you can also consult the Statutory History tool in the Law and Legislative Digital Library for easy access to digitized public laws and online legislative histories. If the section has been renumbered you will find a derivation list in West’s Maine Revised Statutes Annotated following the historical notes. The public law chapters listed in the derivation are also part of the legislative history of a statutory section. When the history line includes a citation to a prior codification, for example R.S. c. 3, §25 with no year, you need to consult the previous codification. You may trace a section from one codification to the next previous codification until you reach 1821. If you see a year and chapter number, but no R.S. cite, that is a cite for a public law. The earliest public law listed is the original enactor for the section. Prior codifications of the Maine statutes are available online through the Law and Legislative Digital Library. The section histories in the online statutes contain no derivations. There are no citations to chapters prior to 1964 or to the 1954 codification, and there is no indication of prior placement under other numbering in the code. Make a list of all the session laws you have found. If you are interested in only specific words or paragraphs, narrow your list to the laws that affect only those words or paragraphs. Using the historical notes in the bound West volumes and the texts of the session laws can help. If you are researching enacted laws on a subject, find the year and chapter number of the session laws you want to research. Subject access to enacted laws is provided in the Laws of Maine which has cumulative and annual indexes or the Enacted Law Digest (since 1997). For additional ways to search legislation by subject see the sections below on identifying bill numbers. It is helpful to look at each session law to confirm that you have the correct law, to see the scope of the law, and to read the title of the law. Identify bills and amendments Bills are most often identified by the Legislative Document (L.D.) number. Amendments are most easily identified by the filing number (e.g. H-32 or S-101), but are also referred to by terms such as Committee Amendment "A" or Senate Amendment "F". The L.D. is the unit for which you will find Statements of Fact, amendments, the committee file, debate and occasionally a study report. The year of the legislation and the L.D. number are the key to retrieving these pieces. How you find the L.D. and amendment numbers depends on what you know and the year of the bill. Here are some ways to find them. L.D. and amendment numbers
L.D. numbers only The Laws of Maine from 1979 forward print the L.D. number on each session law, but no information about amendments is given and only enacted laws are included. Find sponsors’ statements of fact Starting in 1971 you will find a statement at the end of each L.D. that has been approved by the sponsor and briefly describes the bill. Since 1979 all amendments have a statement. It is labeled either Statement of Fact or Summary. The courts have accepted this statement as evidence of the intent of the legislation and it is often the clearest statement of the purpose. You should also check for statements on legislation prior to 1971, but they are rare. There are collections of Maine Legislative Documents at a number of libraries in Maine, including our collection which starts in 1835. Bills from 1868 to present are available in the Law and Legislative Digital Library. The Legislature's Bill Tracker system includes the full-text of bills from the 116th Legislature forward. Research committee hearings Committee files are available for most bills from 1983 (111th Legislature) forward although early years have less material. The committee master files contain written hearing testimony, fiscal notes, and committee votes. They may also contain analysis by the committee analyst, statements from state agencies, lobbyists, and citizens, drafts of amendments, and other materials considered at work sessions. Although you may see reference to a committee report, this term refers to the committee’s recommended action and not an actual report. The Law Library has digitized all committee files back to the 111th Legislative Session (1983). These files can be emailed as PDFs. Contact a reference librarian to request a committee file. Recording of public hearings began in the 127th Legislature (2015-2016). Committee deliberations are not transcribed. Committee recordings can be found the Legislature's website. Click on Calendar. Find the day and the committee. Click on the audio symbol, and then click on the word Play (there might be a delay in the page loading). Research floor debate and proceedings The Law and Legislative Digital Library’s expanding legislative history collection gives you links directly to the text of debate on a specific piece of legislation. Legislative debate and roll call votes are published in the Legislative Record starting in 1897. The House Record and Senate Record for recent sessions are on the House and Senate websites. Sometimes you will find no debate and frequently there are no roll call votes on a specific L.D. For most years you will find debate using the Legislative Record indexes. The indexes provide access by subject or by key words from the title of the bill. Remember that the subject and title of the bill may be much broader than the subject matter of the section you are researching. More recently you can find pages by the L.D. number. For a few years (1987-88 at least) if your bill had any new drafts, you must check under the number for every draft. Until 1999 the bound volumes contain a separate index for each session of the Legislature. Starting in the 1993-94 biennium there is one index for all the sessions of each Legislature. Starting in 1997 the House and Senate Records are published separately each with its own index. The Record is first distributed as loose-leaf pages and publication of the bound Record may be delayed by several years. When there is no index, you need to find the dates on which the L.D. was considered, or docket dates. The Library will help you identify dates and may have a worksheet noting the pages containing debate. The docket dates are available on the Legislature’s Bill Tracking system from 1986 forward and on the Legislature’s Lawmaker system for recent sessions. Scan the print or online House Record and Senate Record for each date, looking for the L.D. number you are researching or use the find command (Ctrl+F) in your browser. Look for a study The L.D. or the debate may indicate that the legislation is the result of a study, although only a few studies are conducted each year. In that case you will want to look for a study. Sometimes the proposed legislation is the only result of a study. A study may be required by legislation, approved by the Legislative Council, or conducted by a government agency or task force. Starting in 1995 legislative study reports are available on the website of the Office of Policy and Legal Analysis (OPLA). Postings are not complete in the earlier years. Since 1941 the Library has collected all legislative study reports. Search the URSUS online catalog or talk with Library staff to locate copies of study reports (many reports have been digitized and are available online through the catalog). Sometimes searching the number of the Legislature, e.g. 118th, and a key word from the subject or committee name will bring up a list that can be easily scanned. Following a major revision a commission may write commentary that is printed as notes in West's Maine Revised Statutes Annotated following the pertinent section. A few study commissions have donated working papers which are available in the Library. Contact the Library if you wish to research papers related to the enactment of: Criminal Code Revision (Title 17-A, P.L. 1975, ch. 499) Insurance Code (Title 24-A, P.L. 1969, ch.132) Juvenile Code (Title 15, Part 6, P.L. 1977, ch. 520) Probate Code (Title 18-A, P.L. 1979, ch. 540) Workers Compensation Reform (Title 39-A, P.L. 1991, ch. 885) Additional research possibilities News clippings News articles provide background on an issue, are an indicator of public perception, and may refer to related legislation. The Library's newspaper clippings collection includes newspaper articles relating to legislation that can be accessed using the L.D. number or by broad topics. For the years 1981 to 2020 articles relevant to a particular L.D. can be found in the individual legislative histories in the Law and Legislative Digital Library. News clippings going back to the 1960s, which are related to specific bills, can be found using the Library's news clipping database (available only at the public computers in the library), or by contacting the Library. Emergency preambles Additional clues about the purpose of legislation may be found in the Emergency Preamble or Fiscal Note. Emergency preambles are printed at the beginning of legislation proposed as an emergency measure and appear on enacted laws, L.D.’s and amendments. Fiscal notes The Fiscal Note is usually printed at the end of a bill just before the Summary and does not appear on the enacted law. The Fiscal Note usually appears in a Committee Amendment rather than on the original bill and is also in the committee master file. This is the current practice, but procedures have varied over time. Fiscal information is rare prior to 1989. Bill and enacted law summaries Committee analysts prepare their own summaries of bills and enacted laws during each regular session. For the years 1981 to present bill and enacted law summaries for a particular L.D. can be found in the individual legislative histories in the Law and Legislative Digital Library. Recent summaries are available on the OPLA website and from the Office of Fiscal and Program Review for the Taxation and Appropriations Committees. The Library has summaries beginning in 1983. Uniform Laws commentary Maine’s law may be based on an existing law from another state, a uniform law, or a model law. You may want to consult Uniform Laws Annotated or other publications of model laws.
Updated 5/8/2024 A-Z List |