This guide refers to the documents that are created as a bill moves through the legislative process and the bill's eventual publication. Those documents are listed here in reverse order:
This guide will lead you through compiling a straightforward legislative history of a New Hampshire statute. The worksheet and the guide start from the final product, the New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated, and work backward through the legislative process to the first step, the introduction of the original bill. But where you begin depends on the information you have to start with. You may have a statute cite, a bill number, or just a subject. Enter whatever information you have in the worksheet and then work backward and forward until you have found all the sources. If you need explanations, check the pages in this guide. The guide will also tell you where to find the sources both in print and online. Print is still the "official" format of legislative documents in New Hampshire, but the guide contains links to a variety of online resources. Some of the online sources are digitized versions of the official print sources; some are unofficial and only online. Most of the sources are available for free either online or in print but we have also linked to subscription databases available here at the Law Library.
As we said above, this guide leads you through a straightforward legislative history. If you're working on a complicated statute and run into problems, feel free to email the Law Library for help.
Depending on how you intend to use your legislative history, you might also consult commentary on adopted uniform or model acts (if your law is a uniform law), news reports, or public statements of sponsors, or entities requesting the bill.
