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Wisconsin Legislative History : Code & Session Laws

A guide to researching the legislative history of Wisconsin laws.

Wisconsin Statutes (code)

Codes contain all statutes currently in force in a jurisdiction at the time of publication and are arranged topically.  In WI, the official code is the Wisconsin Statutes.  The Wisconsin Statutes Annotated is an unofficial code.

Session Laws

When a law is enacted, it is assigned a sequential act number and printed in slip form (called a slip law).

After the legislative session ends, acts passed during that session are printed chronologically in the session laws.  In WI, the session laws are called the Laws of Wisconsin.

Legislatively Mandated Reports