Congressional Record: Its Production, Distribution, and Accessibility

Congressional Record: Its Production, Distribution, and Accessibility

Order Code 98-266 GOV
Updated July 17, 2003
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
Congressional Record: Its Production,

Distribution, and Accessibility
Mildred Amer
Specialist in American Government
Government and Finance Division
The Congressional Record is the most widely recognized published account of the
debates and activities in Congress. The Record often reflects the intent of Congress in
enacting legislation. This fact sheet is one of a series on the legislative process. Please
see [http://www.crs.gov/products/guides/guidehome/shtml] for more information on the
legislative process.
The Constitution mandates that each house shall keep and publish a journal of its
proceedings. Accordingly, the House and Senate Journals, which are summaries of floor
proceedings, are the official accounts of congressional proceedings, but the Record is
better known and the most useful.
The Record is published daily by the Government Printing Office (GPO) when either
or both houses of Congress are in session. It is brought by GPO to the congressional post
offices for early morning delivery to the offices of Members and committees.
Each day’s Record contains an account of the previous day’s congressional activity.
However, if a session extends past midnight, the Record is usually published in two parts
with the first part printed the following day, and action after midnight included in the next
day’s edition. Copies of the Record are also available for Representatives inside the
House chamber and for Senators on their desks in the Senate chamber. Extra copies may
be obtained from the House Document Room (B18, Ford House Office), the Senate
Library (B15, Russell Senate Office Building), and the Senate Document Room (B04,
Hart Senate Office Building).
The Record, which averages about 200 pages a day, 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 Congress. It does not contain any text of committee proceedings.
Located at the back of the Record, the Daily Digest of activity in Congress is a key
to using a daily Record. Separately for the House and Senate, it contains summary
information on chamber action the preceding day, including measures introduced,
reported, debated, and passed, and appointments made. It also summarizes committee
activities, provides the time and location of committee and subcommittee meetings
scheduled for the day the Record is delivered, and gives the time and date of the next
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

CRS-2
convening of the House and Senate. The Daily Digest is prepared by the Daily Digest
Offices in the House and Senate (House, 5-7497, and Senate, 4-2658)
The House and Senate each have teams of official reporters of debate who are
present on the floor and responsible for taking down everything spoken and all business
transacted. In addition, they make copies available to Members and staff to refine the text
of speeches submitted for publication or words spoken in debate. The offices of the
official reporters also assist Members and staff in determining if material they wish to
insert in the Record will adhere to the two-page limit. If the material exceeds two pages,
Members are required to announce the cost to print it. All manuscripts for submission in
the Record must be returned to the official reporters of debate in a timely fashion to insure
publication the following morning. Questions regarding material placed in the Record
can be directed to the House official reporters of debate at 5-5621 or the Senate reporters
at 4-3152.
Actual signatures are required of those Members who wish to insert undelivered
remarks in the Senate section of the Record known as “Additional Statements” or in the
House portion known as “Extensions of Remarks.” These statements must be submitted
by Members or their staffs either at the dais or in the respective cloakrooms in the House
or Senate.
The Record is also available online through GPO and the Library of Congress. It can
be searched either by full text for a certain date, by Member of Congress, or by topic. The
Web site through GPO is [http://www.access.GPO.gov]. Once at the site, the user should
click on GPO Access and then the Congressional Record, which is available from 1994
to the present. The Web site at the Library of Congress is available for the general public
through Thomas [http://thomas.loc.gov] and for congressional staff through the
Legislative Information System [http://www.congress.gov]. At these sites, there are
options for searching the full text of the Record from the 101st through 108th Congresses.
There are two editions of the Record, a daily one and a permanent one. Technical
and parliamentary corrections and changes in the pagination are the major differences in
these two versions of the Record. Through the 104th Congress, after the conclusion of
each two-year Congress, GPO has published the multivolume permanent, hardbound
editions, together with an index for that Congress. However, a reduction in the paper
version of the permanent Record has been mandated by Congress, and future, permanent
editions of the Record will be on CD-Rom.

The Joint Committee on Printing, composed of Members of the Senate Rules and
Administration and House Administration Committees, directs the printing of the Record
by GPO. The committee controls the arrangement and style of the Record. Title 44 of
the U.S. Code contains laws relating to the publication and distribution of the Record.
Questions on Congressional Record policy should be directed to the Joint Committee on
Printing at 5-8281. Since this committee does not have legislative authority, any
resolution affecting policy would be considered by the House Administration Committee
or Senate Rules and Administration Committee.
For more specific information on using the Record, consult CRS Report 98-265, A
Users Guide to the Congressional Record.