Additional Tips for Legislative History
Committee Minutes
Prior to the most recent 16 years or so, the House and Senate committee minutes
are the primary source of information available for researching legislative
intent in Minnesota. These materials are located at the Minnesota Historical
Society. The amount of information provided by the minutes varies greatly
from year to year as well as among committees. Even though the minutes
are not always very detailed, they can often provide clues to assist
you in ascertaining intent.
What should you look for in the minutes?
- The minutes may indicate that the bill before the committee was
the product of a task force, special commission, work group, etc.
which was set up to study the issue. Many times these groups will
publish a report or have minutes of their own. These may be available
at the Legislative Reference Library or the Minnesota Historical Society.
Librarians at both locations can help you search their collections
to determine if this is the case. You can also search
MNPALS, the online catalog which includes both collections.
- Do the minutes indicate whether the bill was based on legislation
passed in another state? If this is the case you might want to contact
that state to determine what legislative history materials they have
from when the issue was before their legislative body.
- Look through the attachments to the minutes for materials which
might prove helpful. Reports, brochures, handouts, bill summaries,
and even copies of individuals' testimonies are sometimes found in
the attachments behind the minutes.
Other Ideas....
- Check the West Annotated Statutes for references to law review articles
written on the relevant section of the statutes.
- Consult issues of Session Weekly
(1995-present) from the Minnesota House of Representatives or Senate Briefly
(1995-2009) from the Minnesota Senate for the year you are
researching. Both publications summarize their respective committees' discussions and floor actions on a weekly basis
during Session. Issues from 1985 to the present are available at the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library.
- Consult news coverage from the year you are researching. The Minnesota Historical Society retains copies of all
Minnesota newspapers.
- Check any personal papers that may have been donated to the Minnesota Historical Society from the individuals and
groups involved/interested in the legislation.
- Refer to any case law that may exist.
- Be certain you are researching the correct year. The legislature sometimes moves language from one section
of statutes to another section. It is possible that the language you are researching, or similar language,
may have existed previously in a different section of Minnesota Statutes.
- Check for other bills that were introduced on this topic, then check to see
if they had hearings. This can be extremely helpful when researching omnibus bills. It's also possible for
an issue to be discussed over several years before actually passing. For these issues it may be useful to
research years prior to the passage of the legislation.
- Hire a private firm to
conduct legislative research for you.
Note: The House of Representatives' April
30, 1999, issue of Session Weekly featured an article on
researching legislative history, "Step-by-step study uncovers the stories
behind laws." The article, beginning on page 16, includes tips and examples.