The following is a guest post by Kenneth R. Thomas, Legislative Attorney, Congressional Research Service.
The “Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation” (popularly known as the Constitution Annotated or “CONAN”), contains an analysis of virtually all Supreme Court case law relevant to interpreting the Constitution. The Centennial Edition of this Senate Document is now available not only in its traditional printed book format, but also on the web. In addition, the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, the Library of Congress, and the Government Printing Office have launched a new app for smart devices that will make this treatise even more widely accessible to the public.
The treatise can be ordered from the Government Printing Office (GPO) bookstore, and a searchable version of the document, using data from the GPO FDsys system, can be accessed from the Congress.gov website. A recently added feature will allow users to link to relevant discussion in the treatise from the Tables of Content, the Table of Cases, and the Index. The Congress.gov website will also contain a link to a “Featured Topics and Cases” page, allowing viewers to access the most relevant discussion of significant Supreme Court cases.
The newly offered CONAN apps will contain all the content of the treatise, and will offer functionality similar to the Congress.gov website. The apps are provided without charge, and can be downloaded from iTunes, the Appstore for Androids (coming soon), or from the Congress.gov website. Both the apps and website will be updated four times each year as summaries and analysis of new Supreme Court decisions are prepared.