Another important component of a statute's legislative history are committee hearing transcripts & Reports.Experts and interested parties often testify in bill hearings before committees and subcommittees in the House and Senate. Please note that hearings are not held for every bill.
The Committee then generates a report for the larger House or Senate at large, summarizing the testimony and providing the Committee's reasons for recommending approval or other action on the bill. Although the hearings are open to the public, transcripts of these proceedings are not widely available and the committee reports are even more difficult to locate. However, the resources below may offer some limited information.
Senate:
House:
Unless you have a specific legislative history document in mind, save yourself some time and look for a compiled legislative history for your statute first before following the steps below (see the Compiled Histories tab for guidance). The Other Resources tab contains links to books on Pennsylvania legal research which feature chapters on legislative history and can be particularly useful for locating pre-1963 statutory information.
Step 1: Locate the proper title and code section of the law you are researching in Purdon's Consolidated Statutes or Statutes Annotated either in Print or on Westlaw using either the popular name table or the subject index.
Purdon's Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes Annotated Reserve & Third Floor (KFP30 1930 .A44)
Purdon's Pennsylvania Statutes Annotated Reserve & Third Floor (KFP 30 1930 .A44)
Step 2: Note the following information at the end of the statutory code section: Date the law was passed, the page number in the Laws of Pennsylvania and the act number
Citation will look like this: 1989, July 10, P.L. 291, No. 50
Step 3: Using the date and page number, locate the correct act in the Laws of Pennsylvania.
Step 4: Use the bill number and congressional session date to locate a bill history
The histories of the bills are arranged in bill number order. You will find citations to legislative discussion, if the bill was discussed. See "remarks" or "debate" for the date or page number where floor discussion is reported in either the House Legislative Journal or Senate Legislative Journal.
Step 5: Use the citations to the House or Senate Journals found in Step 4 to locate the appropriate journal. Prior to 1965 you must use the indexes in the journals themselves for references to "remarks".
Step 6: Locate the full text of the House or Senate bill to track changes