Social Policy and Government Publications - laws, either federal or state, impact the development of policy programs. Listed below are major resources for finding the laws, the regulations and policy analysis organizations.
Bills, Laws of the U.S.
Internet site: https://www.congress.gov//
U.S. Code – King Lower Level Historical Reference KF62.A1 (Laws by subject)
Internet site: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collectionUScode.action?collectionCode=USCODE
U.S. Statutes (Laws by chronology) King Lower Level Historical Reference KF 50.U5
Internet site: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=STATUTE
Code of Federal Regulations – King Lower Level Historical Reference KF 70.A3 – the annual accumulation rules on federal regulations
Internet site: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collectionCfr.action?collectionCode=CFR
Federal Register – King Lower Level Microform: J 1.A2 – the daily listing of proposed and final regulations
Internet site: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=FR
Unified Agenda –
Internet site:
https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaMain summarizes the rules and proposed rules that each Federal agency expects to issue during the next six months.
Catalog of Government Publications searches published resources from US departments and agencies
Internet site:
https://catalog.gpo.gov/F?RN=955146197
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Lower Level Periodicals J 80.A284 (1965-present)
Internet site: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=CPD
Public Papers of the Presidents King 7th Floor J 80.A283 (1929-1933, 1945-
Internet site:
https://www.govinfo.gov/features/public-papers-of-the-presidents
(1992-present)
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance
Internet site:
Bills, Laws of California
Statutes of California – King Government Publications Reference Lower Level KFC 25.C3
Internet site: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/statute.html
Bills of California
Internet site: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html
California Code of Regulations Government Publications Reference Lower Level KFC 30.5.W4
Internet site: http://ccr.oal.ca.gov/
In California, The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) http://www.lao.ca.gov/ is a non-partisan state office that provides position papers on matters of policy and fiscal issues for the state legislature. The office carries-out legislative oversight functions by reviewing and analyzing the operations and finances of state government. An example of their research: Governor’s CalWORKs Reforms: An Assessment http://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/1123
For state and regional policy research, many state legislatures have research divisions. The terminology varies. Kansas is an example of an independent research division, http://www.kslegresearch.org/KLRD-web/Policy.html. In California, the division is the Legislative Analyst’s Office. The state of Nevada also has an excellent example of research reports on social policy issues that affect the state. Their Legislative Council has maintained a full text database of recent reports: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/Division/Research/Publications/PandPReport/index.html
The California Department of Finance (http://www.dof.ca.gov/) is responsible for making fiscal projections on proposed legislation, develop population estimates and projections, and develop economic forecasts for the state. It is at this site that you will find full text the California Statistical Abstract, County Profiles, Economic Indicators for the state and other data of importance to projecting the economy of the state.
The Council of State Governments https://www.csg.org/programs/default.aspx provides research papers on public policy issues that affect each state. On their homepage they link to policy priorities which alert legislators on hot issues and research provided for these issues.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provides an interactive database called HUD USER http://www.huduser.org/ that has current information on housing needs, market conditions, and existing programs, as well as conducting research on priority housing and community development issues, etc.
The U.S. Census Bureau www.census.gov provides two unique services online, The American Community Survey and the American Factfinder https://factfinder.census.gov/ Started in August, 2006, The American Community Survey (ACS) https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/ is now providing estimates of demographic, housing, social, and economic characteristics every year for all states, as well as for all cities, counties, metropolitan areas, and population groups of 65,000 people or more. The difference between ACS and Factfinder is that Factfinder has a more inclusive, larger statistical database while the ACS is more up-to-date with local information.