Searching Government Sites for Policy History
For part of your policy assignment you will need to find many different sources to help you tell the story of how the policy came to be. This page has some hints and useful search boxes. For each section, you should include the keywords for that section in your search. For example, if the policy I am interested in is relating to healthcare, I would search for "healthcare demographics," "healthcare statute," "healthcare lawsuit", etc. depending on the type of resource you are looking for.
Demographic Information
use the search box above
If using google, add site:.gov" to the end of your search. Then, look at the domain that the result comes from. This will be in black above the blue title of the website.
- Federal laws: senate.gov or congress.gov
- NYS laws: nysenate.gov or nyassembly.gov
- Demographic information may be on a government agency's website such as hhs.gov. Adding the keyword demographics to your search to help with this!
Text of the Federal or State Statute
use the search box above
A statute is a law that has been passed by a legislative body. A statute is NOT a bill that is currently in committee. You can find the full text by using congress.gov or nysenate.gov and looking for the full text. It will appear in this type of typer writer font.
Legislative Record/History
use the search box above
The legislative history is a broad term to ask about all the actions that happened to the proposed legislation. This includes things like referring a bill to committee, amending the bill, and voting on the bill. On Congress.gov you will find this information under "Actions." On nysenate.gov there will be a dropdown labeled View Actions (#) where # is the number of actions taken.
Scholarly Article (Peer-Reviewed)
do not use the search box above
Use the search box on the library home page, or the databases listed on the main page of the Social Work Research Guide. You will need to search for the idea that your statute (law) accomplishes. For example, searching S8519 will not result in any useful results. Searching "health care costs" will result in many useful articles.
Court Decision or Pending Case
do not use the search box above
You are most likely to find this using Google by adding the words "court case" or "lawsuit" with the name of the passed bill (e.g. Affordable Care Act court cases). Be sure the examine the website that lists them to make sure its purpose is appropriate for listing lawsuits. Many times you can find the name of the case through Wikipedia. Then you can search for the history of the court case.
Think Tank Search
A think tank is a research organization that produces reports that give advice and sometimes criticism about policy. The members of think tanks are usually scholars, but not always. Harvard maintains a list of think tanks and provides a custom search that you can use to search the websites of many different think tanks at once.
Social Policy sites
The following sites can help you dig deeper into the specifics of a policy.
- Assistance ListingsAssistance listings are detailed public descriptions of federal programs that provide grants, loans, scholarships, insurance, and other types of assistance awards. You may browse assistance listings across all government agencies to learn about potential funding sources.
- Center for Law & Social PolicyA non profit group that advocates for social policies and provides a wide range of information on them.
- Congressional Research Service ReportsThis collection provides the public with access to research products produced by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) for the United States Congress. By law, CRS works exclusively for Congress, providing timely, objective, and authoritative research and analysis to committees and Members of both the House and Senate, regardless of political party affiliation. As a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS has been a valued and respected resource on Capitol Hill for more than a century.
- CQ House Action ReportsProvides in-depth summaries and analyses of every bill up for consideration on the House floor. Includes the history of an issue, summarized major provisions and potential outcomes of the bill and more.
- Green BookThe current "Green Book." This online publication provides background data and information on a wide range of social welfare programs. Note: The website just changed from greenbook.waysandmeans.house.gov to greenbook-waysandmeans.house.gov so changing the . to - can fix broken links.
- Rutgers Guide to Social PolicyThis comprehensive guide contains links to many federal sources to help with the history of policies.
Legal Databases:
These databases can provide in-depth information on federal and state laws.
- HeinOnline This link opens in a new windowAccess to the Social Justice Suite including: LGBTQ+ Rights, Slavery in American and the World: History, Culture, and Law, Gun Regulation and Legislation in America, Civil Rights and Social Justice, and Open Society Justice Initiative.
- Westlaw Campus ResearchWestlaw provides access to court cases, legal materials, and company information.
Supreme Court Specific Searches
- Justia: Supreme CourtContains opinions, filings, and audio (from Oyez) for each decision.
- OyezOyez (pronounced OH-yay)—a free law project from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII), Justia, and Chicago-Kent College of Law—is a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone. It is the most complete and authoritative source for all of the Court’s audio since the installation of a recording system in October 1955.
- Supreme Court Official OpinionsYou can change the year by clicking the appropriate box on this page.
URL: https://library.brockport.edu/socialwork