That in construing a statute, the intention of the legislature is a fit and proper subject of inquiry, is too well settled to admit of dispute.  That intention, however, is to be collected from the act itself, and other acts, in pari materia."

      People ex rel. Attorney General v. Utica Insurance Company,
      15 Johns. 358, 380-81 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1818)
      (Thompson, C.J.)

If there was any doubt as to the meaning of the act . . . , or the intention of the legislature in passing it, recourse might be had to the records and journals of that body, showing the history of the measure and the debates thereupon for the purpose of ascertaining that meaning and intention."

      People ex rel. Fleming v. Dalton,
      158 N.Y. 175, 184-5 (1899)
      (Bartlett, J.)

I. INTRODUCTION: LEGISLATIVE INTENT, NOT LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

For the researcher used to federal statutory research, the most striking thing about inquiry into the legislative history of New York State statutes is the absence of source materials. Adequate means exist to trace the legislative history of a bill in the sense of tracing its progress through the legislature. To a substantial degree, to a degree dismaying to the federal researcher, means often do not exist to establish the legislative history of a bill in the sense of ascertaining its meaning.

The intent of the legislature in enacting a statute always controls its meaning. Properly speaking, therefore, for New York statutes the search is for indicia of legislative intent rather than for legislative history material in the strict sense. Consideration of legislative intent materials in New York must thus be viewed in the larger context of the judicial construction of statutes.The courts have developed, and the legislature has enacted, an elaborate set of rules governing statutory construction. These rules are designed to guide the courts in the accurate ascertainment of the legislature's intent embodied in statutory language. The common-law rules of construction, developed by the courts, are conveniently, if uncritically, summarized in 97 N.Y. Jur. 2d Statutes (1992), and in Statutes, Book 1 of McKinney's Consolidated Laws of New York (1971-) (a treatise written by the publisher, not a law enacted by the legislature). The statutory rules of construction, enacted by the legislature, are contained in a consolidated law, the General Construction Law (printed, with annotations, in Book 21 of McKinney's and in Volume 15B of the competing Consolidated Laws Service). Only when these ordinary rules of statutory construction fail adequately to elucidate the legislature's intent, do courts and attorneys turn to other "indicia of legislative intent": New York's equivalent of legislative history materials.

The two standard discussions of this subject are R. Carter, Legislative Intent in New York State (1981), and E. Gibson, New York Legal Research Guide, Chp. 5 (1998). For an excellent Internet introduction to this subject, see the N.Y.S. Library's "The Legislative History of a New York State Law; a Tutorial and Guide to Library Resources" (http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/leghist/). Below are brief explanations of New York's legislative process and the documents it produces, and of the publications used in legislative intent research.

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State Senate and Assembly Homepages Senate: http://www.senate.state.ny.us/
Assembly: http://www.assembly.state.ny.us/

Useful Addresses and Telephone Numbers
      a. Legislative Library: Room 337, The Capitol, Albany, NY 12243; (518)455-4000 (Note that this library is generally open only to legislators and their staff)
      b. N.Y.S. Library: Cultural Education Center, Empire State Plaza, Albany, N.Y. 12230; (518)474-5355
      c. N.Y.S. Archives: Cultural Education Center, Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12223; (518)474-8955
      d. Senate Office of Microfilm and Records Storage: Room 500 GA, The Capitol, Albany, NY 12248; (518)455-3200
      e. Assembly Public Information Office, Room 202, The Capitol, Albany, NY 12248; (518)455-4218
      f. Governor's Counsel: Executive Chamber, The Capitol, Albany, NY 12224; (518)474-6633
      g. Miscellaneous Records Office, Dept. of State: 3d Floor, 162 Washington Ave., Albany, NY 12231; (518)474-4770

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II. THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS AND ITS DOCUMENTS

A. Bills: Proposed legislation, which (with the exception of the executive budget submitted by the governor) must be introduced by legislators; program or department bills may, however, be drafted by the executive prior to submission. Companion bills (with separate senate and assembly numbers) and uni-bills, or co-sponsored bills (bearing both senate and assembly numbers and introduced simultaneously in both houses), are identical bills introduced in
both Senate and Assembly to speed consideration.
      1. How numbered: Senate bills bear the prefix S., e.g. S.500; Assembly bills the prefix A., e.g. A.5520. Amendments to bills during the legislative process are indicated by letter suffixes: thus, S.500-A has been amended once, A.5520-B twice. A term of the legislature lasts two years, divided into annual sessions. Bills can be carried over from the first session into the second; but if they are not passed during a term, they must be reintroduced (and renumbered) in the next term for further consideration.
      2. Where available: Bills for the current session are available from the Assembly and Senate document rooms and on the Senate and assembly homepages, and for the current and recent sessions online through the Legislative Retrieval Service (LRS), and in printed form in the New York State Library and the Legislative Library. Older bills (1830s on), in bound form, are in the State and Legislative Libraries. Lexis (NY library, NYBILL file) and Westlaw (NYBILL database) provides the text of, and status information on, current bills.
      3. Sponsors' memoranda: Legislators introducing bills must submit introductory memoranda explaining the bills' purpose. Those for the current session are online on LRS, and older ones are available in the Legislative Library and on microfiche in the State Library. Memoranda for enacted bills are included in bill jackets (discussed below) and are printed selectively in McKinney's Session Laws and the N.Y. Legislative Annual.
      4. Resolutions: Not used for proposed legislation; but concurrent resolutions important in that they propose amendments to the state constitution and amendments to the federal constitution. They are printed in the Laws of New York and in McKinney's Session Laws.

B. Committee hearings: Legislative committees may hold hearings on bills. Some (but a long way from all) hearings may be available in typewritten transcripts or even printed, and some of these available in the State, Legislative, and other libraries. There is no uniform system for designating, printing, or even cataloging or collecting such hearings; they are frequently difficult to find, and often not worth the finding.

C. Committee action: If a committee approves of a bill, it will report it out, either with or without amendments. State committees, unlike federal, do not prepare committee reports; thus, the most important federal legislative history document does not exist in the state.

D. Debate on the bill: New York does not print legislative debates (unlike the federal Congressional Record). Typewritten transcripts of Senate (1960-) and Assembly (1977-) debates are, however, available in the Senate Office of Microfilm and Records Storage and in the Assembly Public Information Office. To use these, one must know bill number and date of debate.

E. Votes on bills: The Senate and Assembly Journals are printed and are useful for listing votes on bills (although they do not print debates). Votes are also recorded in the bill jackets.

F. Bill jackets: Bills passed by both houses are placed in folders called "bill jackets," along with the sponsor's memo and the legislators' voting record, and sent to the governor's counsel. Interested government agencies, bar associations, and other organizations and persons may submit memos to be placed in the bill jacket for the governor to read before deciding to approve or veto a bill. Bill jackets do not contain legislative committee reports or hearings. Despite this, bill jackets are the primary "legislative history" document in New York.
     1. When and where available: Available for 1905 and for 1921-present. Current two years are usually in the governor's counsel's office. Older jackets are in the State Library, the State Archives, the Legislative Library, and a few years at the Albany Law School Library.
     2. How arranged: Bill jackets for bills enacted into law are arranged by year and chapter number of the enacted law.
          a. Veto jackets: Bills vetoed by the governor, enclosing his veto message. Arranged (1926-1963) by year and bill introduction number; now (1963-) by year and veto number.
          b. Recall jackets: Bills recalled by the legislature from the governor before he could consider them. Available (1936-1954) with veto jackets; now (1954-) in the Senate Archives.
     3. Printed excerpts of bill jackets: Selected memos from bill jackets are printed in the N.Y. Legis lative Digest and in McKinney's Session Laws.

G. Governors' memoranda: The governor may (but often does not) issue approval memoranda when he signs bills, or veto memoranda when he rejects them. Though technically not "legislative history" since not part of the legislative process, these memoranda are still considered as "indicia of legislative intent" in New York. They are first issued as press releases, then printed in the Legislative Digest, selectively in McKinney's Session Laws and the Legislative Annual, and finally (after a long delay) in the governor's Public Papers. The governor's annual message to the legislature, outlining his legislative program for the year, is reprinted in McKinney's and CLS Session Laws.

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III. ENACTED STATUTES AND CODES

A. Enacted statutes, passed by both houses of the legislature and approved by the governor (or repassed over his veto), are called chapter laws or session laws.
     1. How numbered: For each session of the legislature, statutes are assigned chapter numbers in chronological order of their approval: thus, Chapter 10 is the tenth law passed during a session. Since renumbering begins with each new annual session, a full citation requires both the chapter number and the year of passage: thus, Laws of 1990, Chapter 10. As cited by the Bluebook, 1990 N.Y. Laws ch. 10; as cited by the Official New York Reports Style Manual, L 1990, ch 10. Unlike federal laws, statutes for public and private purposes are not numbered in separate series.
     2. Where printed
          a. Slip laws: Individual copies of new laws are available, for a fee, from the Dept. of State Miscellaneous Records Office, and from the Assembly and Senate document rooms (in the form of the final bill sent to the governor). Hamilton Printing Co. and CCH (Legislative Dept.) also offer subscriptions for new chapter laws as issued.
          b. Laws of New York: The annual, official edition (equivalent to the federal Statutes at Large), and the most complete, in that it includes all chapter laws, including temporary, private, special, and appropriations statutes, as well as concurrent resolutions proposing or adopting constitutional amendments. It is, however, also the slowest edition, often taking several years to appear (the 1975 volume never did appear, due to budget constraints). Certified by the Senate Temporary President and the Assembly Speaker to be read in evidence (Pub. Off. Law, sec. 70-a). c. McKinney's Session Laws (West) and CLS Session Law Service (Lexis/Nexis): Both print all chapter laws of general effect, as well as secondary material useful in legislative intent research, such as reports of the Law Revision Commission and the governor's annual message and approval memoranda. Supplemented during the legislative session by advance sheets.
     3. Online availability
          a. Legislative Retrieval Service (LRS): Carries laws of the current session, as well as of the past few sessions. Laws appear most quickly on this service.
          b. Senate and Assembly homepages: Current session 
          c. Lexis: New York (NY) library, Advanced Legislative Service (ALS) file: essentially CLS Session Law Service online. 
          d. Westlaw: New York Legislative Service (NY-LEGIS) database: essentially McKinney's Session Laws online.

B. Codification: the Consolidated Laws of New York: The generally effective session laws, arranged and classified by subject (the state equivalent of the United States Code).
     1. Predecessors: New York has had a long history of statutory "codification," for which see Gibson, N.Y. Legal Research Guide, chps. 3-4. The most important of these earlier codes were the Revised Statutes of 1829 and the General Laws (1889-1900).
     2. Original Consolidated Laws: Enacted in 1909 as a supplement to the session laws of that year. When enacted, they repealed all the prior session laws from which they derived (so that it is rarely necessary to refer to pre-1909 session laws, except for historical purposes).
     3. Arrangement: Alphabetically, by consolidated law. Each consolidated law has a chapter number (not to be confused with chapter numbers assigned individual session laws) as a delimiter: thus, when a consolidated law refers to "this chapter," it is limiting its reference to that individual consolidated law.
     4. How amended: Individual session laws amend consolidated laws by direct reference to the consolidation; this policy of "continuous consolidation" avoids the renumbering of sections and recodification of successive editions of the U.S. Code.
     5. Court acts (Court of Claims Act, Family Court Act, N.Y.C. Civil and Criminal Court Acts, and Uniform City, District, and Justice Court Acts): Not part of the Consolidated Laws; but they are printed after the Judiciary Law in McKinney's Consolidated Laws and at the end of the set in the Consolidated Laws Service (CLS).
     6. Unconsolidated laws: Local and temporary laws omitted from the Consolidated Laws (as are some miscellaneous laws that, practically, do not fit into the consolidation scheme); in addition, nonsubstantive parts of session laws that otherwise amend Consolidated Laws may also be omitted (or only printed as explanatory notes after the Consolidated Law section). These omitted statutes are still effective statutes; all are printed in the annual Laws of New York and many in McKinney's and CLS Session Laws. McKinney's and CLS Consolidated Laws select some of the more important of these, renumber and arrange them by the publishers' own classifications, and print them at the end of their editions of the Consolidated Laws. (McKinney's and CLS have different arrangements; but both provide tables showing where individual session laws end up in their "Unconsolidated Laws" compilations.)

C. Editions of the Consolidated Laws
     1. Consolidated Laws of 1909: The only official edition, published by the state; never updated.
     2. McKinney's Consolidated Laws (West): Updated by pocket parts and supplemental pamphlets. Has more case annotations than CLS.
     3. New York Consolidated Laws Service (CLS) (Lexis/Nexis): Updated by pocket parts and supplemental pamphlets. Has more references to regulations and secondary literature than McKinney's. Both McKinney's and CLS bear certification by the Senate Temporary President and the Assembly Speaker, allowing them to be read into evidence.

D. Online availability
     1. Legislative Retrieval Service (LRS): Prepared by the State Bill Drafting Commission. Has the current text of the Consolidated Laws, plus recent session laws amending the consolidation.
     2. Senate and Assembly Homepages: Current text
     3. Westlaw: Statutes unannotated (NY-ST) and annotated (NY-ST-ANN) (essentially, McKinney's online).
     4. Lexis: New York (NY) library, CODE file (essentially, CLS online)

E. How to trace Consolidated Laws to their origin: History notes following Consolidated Law sections cite the session laws that enacted and amended a section. The notes will usually go back only to the initial consolidation in 1909. To go back further, check the history notes following sections in Birdseye's, Cumming & Gilberts Consolidated Laws of New York (1909). A cite to the year and chapter number of an enacting or amending statute will lead you further to legislative history material (if any). (Vol. 6 of Birdseye's allows one to reverse the process, showing where pre-1909 session laws were codified in the Consolidated Laws.)

F. How to trace amendments to the Consolidated Laws:
     1. Check the pocket part or pamphlet supplement to McKinney's or CLS. These are arranged in Consolidated Law section order.
     2. Check the Consolidated Laws tables in the most recent pamphlet supplement of McKinney's or CLS Session Laws for amendments passed by the current legislature. These arranged by Consolidated Law section.
     3. Check the "Subject Index of Laws" in the most recent supplement to the Legislative Index, arranged by mainly by Consolidated Law, with alphabetical subject subheadings.    
     4. Shepardize the section in Shepard's New York Statute Citations, arranged by Consolidated Law section.
     5. Check the combined Consolidated Law-current session law (CLAW) database on LRS (the most current), or the advanced legislative services on Lexis or Westlaw.

G. How to trace amendments to unconsolidated laws:
     1. Pre-1909 laws: Check The Statutory Record of the Unconsolidated Laws (1911-1928), prepared by the Board that produced the Consolidated Laws. The Board also prepared a subject index to the pre-1909 unconsolidated laws. For amendments to these laws after 1909, see below.
     2. Post-consolidation (1909-) laws:
          a. Check the "Laws Other Than Consolidated Laws" table (McKinney's) or the "CLS Unconsolidated Laws Affected" table (CLS) in the advance session law services, arranged by year and chapter.
          b. Check the "Subject Index of Laws" in the most recent supplement to the Legislative Index, arranged alphabetically by subject.
          c. Check Shepard's New York Statute citations, arranged by year and chapter.
          d. Check the current session law database on LRS (the most current), or the advanced session law databases on Lexis or Westlaw. IV. THE LEGISLATIVE DIGEST The Legislative Digest (N.Y.S. Legislative Bill Drafting Comm., 1985-), with its predecessor the Legislative Index (1913-1984), is the primary printed index to pending state legislation. The Digest first appears as weekly, cumulative supplements while the legislature is in session, and then as bound annual volumes for each legislative session. Every Assembly and Senate bill is listed by bill number, with a brief summary of its purpose, its sponsors, and its progress through the legislature: for those few bills that pass both houses, the Digest notes the chapter numbers of approved, and veto numbers of rejected, bills. Tables provide cross-references from chapter numbers to bill numbers; indexes (arranged largely by Consolidated Law titles) provide subject access to bills and to session laws; and the text of the governor's approval and veto messages are printed. The Digest, therefore, will tell you how far a pending bill has progressed through the legislature; and it will give you the sponsors, bill number, and dates of debate and passage of an enacted session law. The Legislative Retrieval Service is the online version of the Legislative Digest, with the addition of the full text of bills and statutes indexed. The Senate and Assembly homepages carry what amounts to LRS (albeit more slowly updated) for the current legislative session.

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V. OTHER SOURCES OF LEGISLATIVE INTENT The text of original and amended bills, sponsors' memoranda, hearings and legislative debates (if any), bill jackets, and governors' memoranda may all be considered as evidence of legislative intent. There are, however, a number of other sources regularly considered by the courts.
     A. Standing Commission reports: If the legislature adopts bills based on reports or drafts of the following organizations, those documents are looked to for legislative intent.     
          1. Law Revision Commission Reports (1935-), published by the Commission 1935-1989, and before 1970 in abridged form, and from 1970 on fully, in McKinney's Session Laws. Cumulative indexes published for 1935-1951 and for 1952-1977.
          2. Judicial Conference (1956-1978) and Chief Administrator of the Courts (1979-) Annual Reports, frequently discussing proposed amendments to the CPLR and the CPR. Reprinted in McKinney's Session Laws.
          3. National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, Comments on uniform laws (like the UCC), if adopted by the legislature. Printed in Uniform Laws Annotated.
     B. Special commissions: The legislature or governor will sometimes appoint such bodies to prepare a new Consolidated Law or court act, or to revise an existing one. Their reports are major sources of legislative intent. Unfortunately, these commissions are usually nicknamed the names of their chairmen, as opposed to long and formal titles by which they are listed in library catalogs. For example: the "Dykman Committee" (the Advisory Committee on Practice and Procedure) drafted the CPLR; the "Bennett Commission" (the Temporary State Commission on the Modernization, Revision, and Simplification of the Law of Estates) drafted the EPTL; and the "Bartlett Commission" (the N.Y.S. Commission on Revision of the Penal Law and Criminal Code) drafted the CPL and Penal Law. Access to reports by popular or chairman name is provided by N.Y.S. Senate, Cumulative Index to Joint Legislative Committees and Selected Temporary State Commissions (1900-1950 and supp. 1951-1965), and by R. Carter, Annotated List and Indexes of the N.Y.S. Legislative Document Series (1830-1918; 1919-1976). The reports of these commissions (cited by year and document number) are usually printed in the Legislative Document series (1830-1976), and may be printed, or excerpted, in notes to the McKinney's and CLS Consolidated Laws. C. Bar association reports: Bar associations (particularly the N.Y.S. Bar Assn. and the Assn. of the Bar of the City of New York) will sometimes prepare reports on proposed legislation. These often end up in the bill jackets. The City Assn. prints a useful Legislative Bulletin (arranged by bill number) commenting on bills of interest to the organization, and sometimes prints more substantial reports in its journal, the Record.

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VI. A NOTE ON THE STATE CONSTITUTION The state constitution is the complicated, cumbersome product of some nine conventions (the last being in 1967) and many individual amendments. Individual amendments, in the form of concurrent resolutions, are assigned bill numbers and can be traced as bills in the Legislative Digest (which provides a special table to show their status); such amendments must be passed by two sessions of the legislature and approved by the electorate. Every twenty years voters have the option to call a constitutional convention, and they must approve the amendments proposed by such bodies before they take effect. Conventions have produced (from 1894 on) a fairly standard set of documents: background subject studies for the use of the delegates (those of the 1938 and 1967 conventions being the most useful); a revised record, giving the text of debates; a journal, giving formal actions and votes; and proposed and adopted amendments. History notes following sections of the annotated constitution in McKinney's and CLS Consolidated Laws give the derivation of each provision. The most useful research tool here, however, is R. Carter, The New York State Constitution: Sources of Legislative Intent (1988): this work footnotes each clause of the constitution with references to the original constitutional documents that produced it.