Making laws
Congressional Research Service
Congress's own nonpartisan research arm, inside the Library of Congress. Its reports explain law and policy without taking a side, and are now public.
In full
CRS analysts write for members and committees on request, producing reports that describe what a law does, what the options are, and what each would mean, deliberately without recommending. Its reports were long available to the public only secondhand; since 2018 they have been published at crsreports.congress.gov. They are among the most useful plain explanations of federal policy anyone can read.
Also written as: CRS
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Browse every term in the glossary, or see the vocabulary in motion in the How government works walkthroughs.
A plain-language explanation for civic education, not legal advice. When in doubt, the official source named above controls.