Historical Code Searching

You can search the historical codes of the Code of Federal Regulations, United States Code Annotated and the fifty states as well as the District of Columbia on Westlaw. To access a specific year, you would use the same database identifier as the current codes and then add the two-digit year at the end.

For example the database identifier for the Code of Federal Regulations is CFR. The historical codes are available for 1984-2000. To search the 1989 CFR, you would type in CFR89 and then continue your search on the next page.

The United States Code Annotated database identifier is USCA. The historical codes are available for 1990-2002. To search the 2000 USCA, you would type in USCA00.

Most of the states are available starting in the late 1980s. The current annotated code database identifier follows the same pattern for most if not all of the states. The state database identifier includes the two digit state abbreviation and ST-ANN for Statutes Annotated. For example, Iowa Statutes-Annotated would be IA-ST-ANN. Iowa's historical statutes cover 1988-2002. As with the CFR and the USCA, you add the two-digit year at the end of the database identifier to search a specific year -- IA-STANN93.

Note: While the current year IA-ST-ANN has a dash between the ST and ANN, the dash is removed for the historical database search, IA-STANN93.