Guide to Compiling a Massachusetts Legislative History

Types of Citations

The starting place for most research is a citation of some sort. A citation could come in one of three forms:

• General Laws of Massachusetts (M.G.L.) citation (e.g., 276 M.G.L. 26A)
• Session Law published in the Acts and Resolves citation (e.g., 1995 Mass. Acts Chapter 60, Section 3)
• House of Representatives or Senate Bill Number citation (e.g., 1995 HB 543 [House Bill] or 2006 SB 445 [Senate Bill])

Massachusetts General Laws Citations

The General Laws of Massachusetts is the official statutory code and a subject-based arrangement of the laws passed by the Massachusetts General Court of a general and permanent nature. 

Annotated editions of these laws contain notes at the end of each chapter and section, which include when the law was added and revised, as well as references to secondary sources and court decisions. Researchers can use either the  Massachusetts General Laws Annotated [published by Thomson Reuters] or the Annotated Laws of Massachusetts [published by LexisNexis] When working with a citation from the Massachusetts General Laws, write down all the citations to the Acts and Resolves that you wish to research. Researchers might be looking for the history of the entire law or just background on a particular amendment.

Acts and Resolves Citations

The Acts and Resolves are chronological compilations of laws passed by the Massachusetts General Court within a particular legislative session. These session laws provide the exact text of the law passed by the legislature, including what chapters and sections of the General Laws should be changed.

The printed volumes of the official version of the Acts and Resolves from 1692 to 2010 are digitized and available online in the State Library's digital repository. An unofficial version of the Session Laws from 1997 to the present can be found on the Massachusetts General Court website.

Get the Bill Number(s)

Once you have a list of Acts to research, the next step is to determine the bill number

• For Acts from 1907-2000 there is an index volume called the Bulletin of Committee Work
• For all other years of the Acts, the House and Senate Journals have a subject index 

Find Bill Histories

The Bulletin of Committee Work and its companion volume, the Legislative Record, contain short bill history summaries from the years 1907 to 2000.

The printed volumes of the House and Senate Journals also include a short bill history index starting with the year 1970. These bill history summaries include dates when action took place in the legislature and the page in the Journals that details the action.

HJ and a number indicates a House Journal page. SJ and a number indicates a Senate Journal page.

• Make particular note of any entries indicating amendments to the bill
• Many times the bill is a rewritten version of an earlier bill. Note down any other previous bill numbers (they appear in the form of S and a number or H and a number)
• Repeat this process for any related bills you find

Published House Journals from 1854 to 2015/2016 have been digitized and are available in the State Library's digital repository.

Published Senate Journals from 1868 to 2007/2008 have been digitized and are available in the State Library's digital repository.

For more recent bill histories, information can be found on both the Massachusetts General Court's website and on InstaTrac, a bill tracking service [available in-house in the State Library]

The State Library has all of the bills as originally filed in bound volumes called Legislative Documents.

• These volumes are arranged by year and then by bill number
• Most of these documents are digitized and available online in the State Library's digital repository
• It is important to compare the original bill to the bill as passed and note the changes that were made during its path through the legislature  
• Recent bills are also available on the Massachusetts General Court's website and InstaTrac