Prepared by Michael J. Keane, Senior Legislative Analyst and Kristina Martinez, Reference and Instruction Librarian

This brief discusses the sources and methods that are available to research the legislative history of a Wisconsin statute. Researching the legislative history of a Wisconsin statute involves several practical obsta-cles. The legislative process in Wisconsin, as in many states, is not geared toward documenting intent. Many of the resources commonly associated with legislative intent research with respect to the United States Congress have no counterpart in the Wisconsin Legislature. There is no verbatim record of floor debates. There are no formal reports of standing committees indicating the reasons why legislation should be enacted. There is no transcript of committee proceedings. Without those resources, documentation of legislative intent must rely on other resources which are not necessarily relevant to intent, are often not useful, and usually must be interpreted in order to be helpful to the researcher at all. With those limitations in mind, there are a number of steps to follow in researching Wisconsin legislation: 1) Determine what session law created the language being researched; 2) Examine the bill, its analysis, its amendments, and other associated documents