Here, we take a step-by-step look at tracing the legislative history of a Maryland statute. In many cases, print resources mentioned herein have online analogues (and vice-versa). Occasionally online information providers will offer a disclaimer to the effect that the material is unofficial, or not to be cited as authoritative in, e.g., court filings. If that is indeed what you intend it for, then check and cite to the print version.
Legislative bill files are physical files containing all of a bill's supporting documentation. These include exhibits, correspondence and bill markups. Bill files can provide much needed assistance with unraveling a legislative history. The Department of Legislative Services, to date, has distributed about bill files ranging from 1976 to about 12 years ago in microfilm, and from 2003 to about 12 years ago on CD. We maintain both formats, but only the CD copies offer the advantage of search functionality.
The process of digitization is slow, and so there is an 11-year backlog of files waiting to be converted to microfilm and CD. Accordingly, for bill files dating from last 11 years, a trip to Annapolis will be necessary to pull the physical file. The files are maintained by the Maryland Department of Legislative Services Library on State Circle in Annapolis.
