CRS Websites
Current Members of Congress and their offices may access the CRS website (www.crs.gov) and CRS's Legislative Information Service (LIS) website (www.congress.gov). The two sites are the most comprehensive and integrated sources of information regarding workings of the federal government, and are arguably the best sources of information regarding the legislative process of the United States.
These sites provide all information necessary to become informed about any aspect of government. They also have the information needed to keep up-to-the-minute on most legislation including information from past bills similar to the current legislation; historical information about the legislation; biographical data about the Members who introduced it; the ability to track the legislation as it moves through committee hearings to the Floor; and links to information about the legislation in the Congressional Record, Floor and committee schedule information, and the Federal Register.
Neither of these websites is available to the public. In order to prevent public access to the websites, CRS has erected an elaborate firewall to keep the public out. Taxpayers are only allowed access to THOMAS (thomas.loc.gov). In fact, when the public tries to access the LIS, they are automatically forwarded to THOMAS without warning.
www.crs.gov. The CRS website provides CRS publications on current legislative issues, electronic briefing books, information on the legislative and budget processes, a searchable database of all CRS products, and other information about Congressional procedures and activities.
www.congress.gov. The LIS website is specifically designed to track legislation and legislative activity. According to the CRS, "The LIS ... provides bill summary and status, full text of legislation and public laws, full text of committee reports, hearings, and other documents, and the Congressional Record for the current and earlier Congresses. The system also gives (and is searchable by) committee, sponsorship, and cosponsorship; identification of identical bills; and other information." The LIS varies substantially from the system which is available to the public at the Library of Congress' THOMAS website (thomas.loc.gov). In fact, CRS has a special page detailing the enhanced capabilities of the restricted LIS website over the public THOMAS website.
The following is CRS's comparison of the LIS (www.congress.gov) with THOMAS (thomas.loc.gov):
| Service | Legislative Information System | Thomas |
|---|---|---|
| Website | www.congress.gov | thomas.loc.gov |
| Who Can Use It | Congress, including state and district offices, and legislative support agencies only. | Available to the public. |
| Best Used For | Finding the most complete legislative information for congressional staff or for a Member; obtaining information, using databases, and linking to pages that are not available to the public on THOMAS. Should not be used for making links from Member or committee home page (since the public cannot access LIS). | Working with constituents; making links from Member or committee home pages; making printouts that are to be sent to constituents. |
| Commercial Databases | Links to databases that have been licensed for use by House and Senate staff, such as National Journal and the AP Newswire. Links from the status of a bill to National Journal markups. | No links to commercial databases. |
| CRS Reports | Links from Bill Summary & Status display to CRS reports related to a bill. Ability to search all CRS reports via the CRS Home Page; these products can be searched, displayed, and printed. | No CRS reports are available to the public. |
| Restricted links | Links to restricted Capitol Hill Web sites such as the House Intranet, Senate Webster, and Senate amendment tracking system. | No links to restricted Capitol Hill Web sites. |
| Floor & Committee Schedule Information | Links to Capitol Hill and outside sources of floor and committee schedule information, selected to be of most use to congressional staff. | Minimal links to floor and committee schedule information. |
| Advanced search capabilities | Special advanced search capabilities, providing Boolean searching (and, or, not), word proximity searching (quotes to indicate phrases, adj/l, near/l), and other features. | Only basic search capabilities. |
| Saved searches and email alerts | The ability to save searches and to request daily email alerts of new items added to databases that meet the search criteria. | No ability to save searches or request email alerts. |
Read more about this topic: Congressional Research Service