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Political Science 110: Primary Sources

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Primary Sources of law are the laws and regulations themselves. These are the laws as passed by Congress, as well as the statutes and regulations created by the different government agencies, which carry the rule of law.

Constitution

Official Government Publications:

GovInfo
Constitution of the United States, with historical note, amendments, proposed amendments, and an index
National Archives
Copy from the National Archives, with other founding documents
Libray of Congress
With historical context, from the American Memory Project
GovInfo Constitutional Analysis and Interpretation
Analysis ad interpretation from the 112th Congress

Outside Sources:

Legal Information Institute
From Cornell Law School, with explanations
Constitution langage translations
PDF copies of the Constitution in multiple languages
The Founders’ Constitution
Robust resource from the University of Chicago Press

Rules

Official Government Publications:

Current Rules of Practice & Procedure
From uscourts.gov
Congressional Rules & Procedures
From govinfo.gov

Outside Sources:

Federal Rules
From Cornell's Legal Information Institute

Statutes

An Explanation of Statutory Printing from the Law Library of Congress

Official Government Publications

GovInfo
Bills and Statutes
House of Representatives Office of the Law Revision Counsel
The United States Code is a consolidation and codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States

Outside Sources

Legal Information Institute
Searchable by title or section
FindLaw
US Code- Unannotated, searchable
Dragnet
DRAGNET stands for “Database Retrieval Access using Google’s New Electronic Technology,” a specialized search engine that was developed by librarians at the New York Law School

Executive Orders

An Explanation of the Federal Register and the current Federal Register

Other government publications:

From the National Archives
Codified list of Proclamations and Orders
Executive Orders by President
List is all prior Presidents
Federal Register
From govinfo.gov

Outside Sources:

The American Presidency Project
The core of the APP document collection is based on published collections of presidential documents

Bills

Official Government Publications

Congress.gov
Searchable portal for the current US House and Senate
GovInfo
Browsable and searchable bills from 2003- present

Outside Sources

GovTrack.us
GovTrack.us is an independent website tracking the status of legislation in the United States Congress

Legal Cases

Official Government Publication:

United States Courts
Supreme and by District
US Courts Opinions
From govinfo.gov

Outside Sources:

US Case Law
From Justia
Supreme Court
Most recent decisions, from Cornell's Legal Information Institute
Oyez.org
A multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone.
US Supreme Court Cases
From FindLaw
Lower Case Summaries
From FindLaw
Court Listener
A free legal research website containing millions of legal opinions from federal and state courts
SCOTUSblog
The blog of the Supreme Court
The Public Library of Law
PLoL is one of the largest free law libraries in the world, because they assemble law available for free scattered across many different sites

Regulations

See Full List of Current Executive Agencies

Official Government Publications

GovInfo
Code of Federal Regulations (Annual Edition) from 1996- present
eCFR.gov
Electronic Code of Federal Regulations
Regulations.gov
Rulemaking is the policy-making process for Executive and Independent agencies of the Federal government

Outside Sources:

Legal Information Institute
Electronic list of the CFR