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Florida Legislative History

A guide to resources and methods for researching Florida Legislative History.

Goals of this Guide

This Guide will:

   Show you how and where to find the Bill number that created or amended a statute.

   Describe what documentation is available based on different time periods in Florida's legislative history.

   Provide you a complete list of legislative history resources you can use to research.

   Introduce some concepts of statutory construction and related case law.

What is Legislative History?

aerial view of Florida's captiol buildings

"Legislative History" refers to the documents and materials generated as the legislature considered and/or passed a Bill, and the actions it took while doing so. The material includes bill drafts, testimony in committee hearings, debates, votes, and changes made to prior statutes. It includes other data as well, the most important in Florida being an "Analysis", usually referred to as a "Staff Analysis".

Why research Legislative History ?

Legislative History can be used to help a judge interpret the meaning of ambiguous language in a statute.

While determining the Legislature’s motivation for passing a law is often pretty straightforward, determining precisely what it meant by any given word or passage is not.

There are instances where courts interpret a law in a given way, only to have the legislature enact amendments to a statute disallowing the interpretation. For a specific example of the 'back-and-forth' relationship on this issue, look at Fla.Stat. § 893.101(1), or the implications regarding prior court rulings at the end of the last full paragraph of page 4 of the Staff Analysis for Fla. SB 808 (2010).The Bluebook citation would be:
Fla. S. Comm. on Crim. & Civ. Just. Approp., SB 808 (2010) Staff Analysis 4 (Apr. 14, 2010), available at http://archive.flsenate.gov/data/session/2010/Senate/bills/analysis/pdf/2010s0808.ja.pdf.

First step in your research

Legislative history material always revolves around a "Bill".Bill: A proposal for a new law. A legislator introduces and sponsors the bill. It is assigned a number when filed, noting whether it is a House or Senate Bill.

However, you normally start your research having only a statute.

Your first broad objective is to trace that statute back to the relevant Bill that added or amended the language you believe is ambiguous and subject to judicial interpretation.

The initial narrow step in the procedure is to find the Session Law involved.

From that Session Law you can easily find the originating/enacting Bill's number. With the bill number you can begin your search for documents.

These steps reverse the path shown in the "arrow" graphic below.

Stages in Bill passage

The general steps resulting in an enacted statute can be seen in the following graphic,


Image: K. Miller, FSU Law Research Center.

and this flowchart shows details of the process as a bill winds its way through the Florida Legislature:

Flowchart showing steps in bill passage

What is the Staff Analysis?

A Staff Analysis is analogous to the 'Committee Reports' prepared in Congress. They are prepared to inform legislators, prior to voting, of changes to existing law and the probable fiscal effect on passage for the Bill under consideration.

The Staff Analyses are usually the most important component of your legislative history research. Some contain indications of the specific intention of the bill. Many, however, do not.

 When a Staff Analysis is prepared for a bill, it will be reflected on the ”Analyses” tab on the main Bills page once the specific Bill is selected. Different committees may write an analysis on a bill, and different revisions may exist if the analysis is rewritten after a bill is amended. The last report issued with the Bill may be titled "Final Analysis and Fiscal Statement...".

Other Florida Guides

Guides for other states

Legislative mini-FAQ

The Florida Senate provides a helpful FAQ on some questions about legislation in Florida.

      • Reference - FAQ

A Glossary is also provided.

      • Reference - Glossary

Prior Statute Versions

If you do not need the legislative history of a law, but need the text of a statute as of an ealier date, you can find the versions at:

Books

A very dated but comprehensive guide to this subject is Florida legislative histories: a practical guide to their preparation and use, by Carol A. Roehrenbeck. The book is shelved with the Florida materials on the first floor, call number KFF75.R64 1986.