Research Guides: American Indian Law Research Guide: Statutes & Legislative Documents

Federal Statutes

Session Laws (a.k.a., Act, Public Law, Chapter)

United States Statutes at Large (HeinOnline) This link opens in a new window
(HeinOnline) Also available on Bloomberg Law, Lexis Advance, Westlaw & WestlawNext Campus Research and in hardcopy. See the Session Laws section of our Federal Statutory Research guide for more information.

United States Code

See primarily Title 25, although pertinent laws may also be located in other titles including Titles: 5, 18, 28 and 42. See the U.S. Code section of our Federal Statutory Research guide for more information and links to annotated and unannotated versions of the U.S. Code available on subscription databases and freely available government websites.

Westlaw This link opens in a new window
Federal Native American Law Statutes & Court Rules available on Westlaw, includes the text of Title 25 (Indians) of the U.S. Code along with annotations to relevant case law, secondary sources that provide context and analysis, and links to other citing references.
Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: History, Culture & Law (HeinOnline) This link opens in a new window
Formerly title, American Indian Law Collection, this HeinOnline collection features treaties, federal statutes and regulations, federal case law, tribal codes, constitutions, and jurisprudence. Includes federal agency reports, decisions, and other publications as early as 1789.

Selected Early Historical Statutes

Statutes of the United States Concerning Native Americans
(Avalon Project, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School)
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Full-text Acts from 1789 - 1887.

Proposed and Recently Enacted Legislation

Indian Law Bulletins
A current awareness service of the National Indian Law Library. Eight bulletins (U.S. Supreme Court; Federal Courts of Appeal; Federal Trial Courts; State Courts; U.S. Regulatiory; U.S. Legislative; News; Law Reviews/Bar Journals) are published. Users can sign up to receive bulletins via email. A search engine (custom Google search) is provided for searching bulletins, and an archive of past bulletins is also available.
Congress.gov
Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. Federal legislative information. Full-text legislation is available from the 1951 (82nd Cong.) to now.

See our Federal Statutory Research guide (Public Laws - Online Sources) section for links to additional databases and websites for tracking proposed and recently enacted legislation.

Congressional & Legislative History Documents

Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: History, Culture & Law (HeinOnline) This link opens in a new window
This HeinOnline Collection contains a separate Legislative Histories section containing compiled legislative histories. Legislative history publications can be located by publication title, public law number or popular name of the legislation.

American Indian and Alaskan Native Documents in the Congressional Serial Set: 1817-1899
This collection of facsimile documents were assembled from the Oklahoma Department of Libraries print collection and scanned at the University of Oklahoma Donald E Pray Law Library. It contains the House and Senate Documents and Reports from Congressional committees dealing with proposed legislation and issues under investigation. It also includes materials from the executive branch.

ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
U.S. Congressional publications and information of particular importance to legislative history research. Publications include: bills, hearings, committee reports, the Congressional Record, the U.S. Statutes at Large, the U.S. Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, the Federal Register, compiled legislative histories, Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports, campaign contribution and financial information, voting record information, and congressional news sources. See the "Content Coverage Chart" link for dates of coverage and update schedule.
ProQuest Legislative Insight This link opens in a new window
A federal legislative history database containing compilations of digital full-text publications relevant to enacted U.S. public laws. Includes legislative histories for public laws from the 1st Congress (1789) to the current Congress.

United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
Includes audio recordings of Committee hearings from as early as 2005 (109th Congress). Also contains links to bills from as early as 2009, nominations information and prss releases.
Subcommittee on Indian, Insular, and Alaska Native Affairs
(U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources) Contains information about the committee, referred legislation and recent activity. Also video webcasts of hearings from as early as 1996 (104th Congress). Also copies of press releases, Op-Eds, speeches, and Committee correspondence.

State Statutes, Legislative Resources & Information

State-Tribal Institute
(National Conference of State Legislatures) State-Tribal Institute tracks a variety of policy issues affecting state-tribal relations including economic development, environmental protection, human services, taxation, jurisdiction and law enforcement and trust land issues. The web site includes a news and developments section that covers state legislative issues and news; a reports and resources section that contains various publications including briefs, articles, reports and other documents. This web site also contains a Database of State-Tribal Legislation that allows users to locate legislative bills (introduced, pending and enacted) from the current legislative sessions of U.S. state and territorial legislatures.
Database of State-Tribal Legislation
(State-Tribal Institute, National Conference of State Legislators) This database allows users to locate legislative bills (introduced, pending and enacted) from the current legislative sessions of U.S. state and territorial legislatures.
National Caucus of Native American State Legislators
Minnesota Statutes
Minnesota statutes concerning or related to Native Americans can be located under "Indians", in the index to the Minnesota Statutes.