|| Background ||
The Congressional Record is the most widely recognized published account of the debates, proceedings, and activities of the United States Congress.
The Journals of the House and Senate, in which the daily actions of the respective chambers are recorded, are the official records of House and Senate proceedings. However, the Congressional Record--printed by the Government Printing Office on a daily, over-night basis, and after a session is over in bound form--is widely considered to be an essential, fuller record of legislative proceedings. Published under this title since 1873--and before that in three forms and under three titles (Annals of Congress, Register of Debates, and the Congressional Globe)--the Record records the daily floor proceedings of the House and Senate, substantially verbatim. Since 1947, each day's Record also contains at its close a Daily Digest, which recounts by chamber the day's activities, including the number of bills introduced, the floor actions taken that day, a summary of meetings held that day by committees and for what purpose, and a list of committee meetings scheduled for the next day and on what topics (at the end of each week a list of committee meetings scheduled for the following week, and their topics, is printed).
Even though House floor proceedings have been televised since 1979 and Senate floor proceedings since 1986, the Record is viewed as a more reliable account of these proceedings in each chamber. This is so because in the course of conducting business on the floor, Members frequently ask for--and are almost always granted--a truncated reading of a bill or amendment and, instead, its printing in full in the Record. Similarly, Members often offer motions in an abbreviated form in order to save time and expedite action. Accordingly, the video transcripts of floor proceedings are not complete nor technically accurate in either regard. On the other hand, in the Record everything is printed as if it had been fully read or exactly stated. Thus the Record presents a complete and grammatically correct rendition of all bill and amendment texts and of all motions or other procedural matters. The Record is also more accurate because in it Members are allowed to grammatically revise and extend their spoken remarks. Such editing cannot be done during live broadcasts of floor proceedings.
|| Form and Content ||
The Congressional Record, which currently averages about 272 pages a day, is a substantially verbatim account of the proceedings of Congress. It is published daily when either or both Houses of Congress are in session. The Record can be thought of as the world's largest daily newspaper as it contains an account of everything that is said and done on the floors of the House and Senate, extensive additional reprinting of inserted materials, and since 1947, a resume of congressional activity (the Daily Digest).
The Congressional Record consists of four sections: the proceedings of the House, the proceedings of the Senate, the Extensions of Remarks, containing matter not part of the spoken debates and proceedings; and the Daily Digest of activity in the Congress. In the daily edition, each section is paginated separately and continuously during each session of Congress. Each page in each section of the daily editions is preceded by the letter prefix as follows: S for Senate, H for House, E for Extension of remarks, and D for Daily Digest. The proceedings of the House and Senate alternately appear first in each daily printing of the Record when schedules permit.
At the beginning of each month a resume of congressional activity appears in the Record providing cumulative statistical data including days and hours Congress was in session, number of pages of proceedings printed in the Record, and number of bills introduced, reported, and enacted into law.
There are two editions of the Record, a daily one and a bound, permanent one. As previously noted, the daily edition reports each day's proceedings in Congress and is published on the succeeding day. Periodically, throughout a session, indices to the daily Record are published.
The permanent edition differs somewhat from the daily edition. Its text is somewhat edited, revised and rearranged. The pagination is continuous for each session; but there is no H, S, or E before each page number. There is a volume number for each session and numerous parts to each volume.
The final two volumes of the permanent Record of each session are an index containing a history of bills and resolutions and a compilation of Daily Digests for the session. The conclusion of the latter contains a comprehensive resume of all legislative business transacted by the House and Senate during each session (at the end of odd numbered years) and a resume of all business transacted during an entire Congress (at the end of even numbered years).
|| Proceedings of the House and Senate ||
The Congressional Record is not an exact record of the proceedings and debate in the House and Senate. As previously stated, it is a substantially verbatim report. In addition to debate, the Record contains communications from the President and the Executive Branch, memorials, petitions, and various information (including amendments and cosponsors) on legislation introduced and/or passed. Committee activities usually are not reported in the body of the Record other than the mentioning of reports made to the House or Senate or notices of meetings.
The text of bills and resolutions introduced, reports of committees, if previously printed elsewhere, or laws enacted are also not usually printed in the Record. (Sometimes the text of bills introduced in the Senate are published during the introductory remarks of the Senator introducing it.) Conference reports may be published only once, in the proceedings of either the House or the Senate.
In addition, Members of both Houses are allowed to edit the transcript of their remarks before publication in the daily Record, permanent Record, or both. Also, by unanimous consent, House Members may be granted leave to revise and extend their remarks. Senators may be given permission to have inserted in the Record, at the point where they stopped speaking, any unfinished remarks.
Remarks and extraneous material not necessarily pertaining to legislation may also be inserted, subject to certain limitations.
|| Extensions of Remarks ||
The section in each day's Record following the House and Senate proceedings in known as the Extensions of Remarks. This section is now used only by Members of the House to include additional legislative statements not delivered on the House floor as well as extraneous materials such as the text of speeches delivered outside Congress, letters from and tributes to constituents, and newspaper or magazine articles. (Remarks not delivered by Senators that are to be inserted in the Record are usually found in the "Additional Statements" section of the Senate proceedings, effective February 10, 1970.)
The Extensions of Remarks and Daily Digest are always the last portion of the daily edition of the Record. Periodically, between them are found various materials to provide useful and diverse information. These include Laws and Rules for Publication of the Record, a listing of Representatives and Senators as well as their office numbers, officers of the House and Senate, the names of the official reporters of debate, committee memberships, and the names of the Justices of the Supreme Court and judges of certain other Federal courts.
|| Daily Digest ||
The last portion of the daily Congressional Record is known as the Daily Digest. It was established by the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 (Public Law 601, 79th Congress) to provide a concise and convenient account of actions taken by the House, Senate committees, and subcommittees during the previous day and activities scheduled the next day.
In practice, the Daily Digest contains a summary of work of the day covered in the body of the Record, organized under Highlights, Senate Chamber Action, Senate Committee Meetings, House Chamber Action, House Committee Meetings, and Joint Committee Meetings and a list of committee meetings scheduled for the next day. Friday issues, or the last issue of the week, contain, in addition, a section entitled Congressional Program Ahead which outlines the plans of each Chamber and its committees for the coming week.
As previously noted, in the permanent, bound edition of each session's Congressional Record is one volume that is a compilation of all the Daily Digests for that session.
|| The Indices ||
Semimonthly indices and an index to the bound edition of the Record are required by law (44 U.S.C. 901). The index is not only an indispensable guide to the contents of the Record, but it is also an important aid in tracing legislation. The biweekly indices cannot be used for the bound, permanent Record, nor can the bound, permanent index to a session be used for the daily Record, since the daily and bound volume paginations are not the same.
The indices are composed of two parts, an index to the proceedings, which includes material in the Extensions of Remarks and is, in general, arranged by name as well as subject; and a history of bills and resolutions (for both House and Senate measures) which is arranged by bill and resolution numbers.
With the index, one can locate all of the Record page references to items such as the remarks made by a particular Member, all the bills and the amendments introduced by that Member as well as follow the legislative history of legislation, such as when a measure was introduced and/or reported, debated, passed, and enacted.
You can search and/or browse the semimonthly Congressional Record Index on the THOMAS system. Choose the Congress and session you wish to search in the Index from the THOMAS Home Page.