Bluebook Guide: Governmental Materials

In some instances, extensive research into various governmental materials may be necessary for completing a law review article or court document.

Of course, The Bluebook is here to provide citation guidance for legislative, administrative, and executive materials.  Legislative materials provide background and information about whether a bill becomes a law.  Administrative and executive materials are documents published by governmental agencies that provide the administration and execution of enacted laws.

There are some examples on The Bluebook's Quick Style Guide.

Citation of legislative materials delves into a great deal of minutiae of various topics.

• Federal Bills and Resolutions (R.13.2(a) & (b), pp. 136-37)
• State Bills and Resolutions (R13.2(c), p. 137)
• Federal Committee Hearing (R13.3(a), pp. 137-38)
• State Committee Hearing (R13.3(b), p. 138)
• Reports, Documents, and Committee Prints (R13.4, pp. 138-39)
• Debates (R13.5, p. 140)
• Legislative Histories (R13.6, p. 140)
• Electronic Sources (R13.7, pp. 140-41)
• Short Forms for Legislative Materials (R13.8, pp. 141-42)

The Bluepages provide a short overview with examples for citation of legislative materials.  See B13, pp. 21-22.  A Whitepage Rule may be used to supplement a corresponding Bluepage Rule.  

Like legislative materials, citation of administrative and executive materials delves into a great deal of detail of various topics, and R14, pp. 142-47, gives direction for the most common forms of existing materials. 

• The Bluebook contains a non-exclusive table of administrative agency and executive materials, which emphasize citation forms that differ from R14.  See T1.2, pp. 230-42.
• Practitioners should comply with an agency’s conventions for citation when authoring submissions to that agency, as that convention may vary from the rule established in The Bluebook.  
• State materials may be cited by analogy to the federal examples given in R14.
• The Bluepages provide a short overview with examples for citation of administrative and executive materials.  See B14, p. 22.  
• Of course, a Whitepage Rule may be used to supplement a corresponding Bluepage Rule.
• Frequently, research will involve the Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.), which is the official legal print publication containing the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the departments and agencies of the Federal Government. 

The Bluebook also covers the following areas with respect to administrative and executive materials.

• Rules, Regulations, and Other Publications (R14.2, pp. 142-44)
• Administrative Adjudications and Arbitrations (R14.3, pp. 144-46)
• Commercial Electronic Databases (R14.4, p. 146)
• Short Forms for Regulations (R14.5, pp. 146-47)