The Congressional Record is a strange, wondrous, and problematical publication. It is the record of the proceedings, debates, and activities of Congress. But that doesn't begin to describe the drama, comedy, egos, and sleight-of-hand that are in this publication. All of this is carefully cloaked in boring details. The text is more or less verbatim and many of the oddities result due to the "more or less" nature.
The Record also includes messages, reports, and communications from the President and executive agencies.
For most of its one hundred and forty years of publishing, there have been two editions:
History:
Congressional Record began March 4, 1873, the opening day of the 43rd Congress (special session).
Congressional Record predecessors:
Non-Governmental Information:
It's an honor to be mentioned in the Congressional Record and people, businesses, organizations are often cited, lauded, proclaimed, or paid tribute to.
There are many reasons that Members of Congress introduce non-governmental issues or persons in the Congressional Record. The most common reasons are:
These extraneous entries in the Record span a great range of topics, honoring heroes to honoring the birth of a baby.
Sections (1968-present):
Daily issues do not have an index; the Daily Digest is the best point of access when a page number is not known.
Available:
Includes:
Bound volumes are printed at the conclusion of each session of Congress and after a long delay.
According to the Government Publishing Office:
At the end of each session of Congress, all of the daily editions are collected, re-paginated, and re-indexed into a permanent, bound edition. This permanent edition, referred to as the Congressional Record (Bound Edition), is made up of one volume per session of Congress, with each volume published in multiple parts, each part containing approximately 10 to 20 days of Congressional proceedings.
The primary ways in which the bound edition differs from the daily edition are continuous pagination; somewhat edited, revised, and rearranged text; and the dropping of the prefixes H, S, D, and E before page numbers.
Congressional Record Bound Edition
Call number: U.S Docs Reference (X followed by vol. number) (holdings: 1973 - 2009 (v. 119 - v. 155)
Call number: Library Annex (X followed by vol. number) (holdings: 1874 - 1972 (v. 2 - v. 118)
Call number: Microfilm S 687 (holdings: 1873 - 1972 (v. 1 - v. 118)
Beginning with the 1985 edition, GPO distributes the permanent bound edition only to Regionals or major depositories in states without a regional, such as, the University of Delaware Library.
The digitized volumes (Volume 144 and previous) are available to browse and download at the section level (i.e. House, Senate, and Extensions of Remarks) while the more recent volumes are available at the article level.
Available digitized volumes,1873 to 2001, 2002 to 2015 . Search from govinfo Advanced Search page. Congressional Record Index is also searchable.
The record of the proceedings, debates, and activities of Congress. Hathi trust collection offers full text digital images of volumes/parts of the Bound record. Selected volumes only. Note: volumes may have been scanned by more than one library.
Includes:
Comprehensive access to United States legislative information.
The Members of Congress can alter the statements made on the floor. They can edit or delete remarks.
This revision notification appears at the bottom of the last page of each daily issue:
Following each session of Congress, the daily Congressional Records is revised, printed, permanently bound and sold by the Superintendent of Documents in individual parts or by sets.
Noting if a revision has taken place is difficult to spot, but you can find revisions at the bottom of daily record.
Electronic Records:
The Record is published digitally. Now Members can edit their statements immediately in the daily issues.
In explanation, this information is posted on the Library of Congress website:
Many statements in the Congressional Record were never said on the floor, but were rather added later to the Congressional Record.
The House of Representatives uses a separate section to print extended remarks. The section includes:
additional legislative statements not actually delivered on the House floor, as well as extraneous material, such as texts of speeches delivered outside Congress, letters from and tributes to constituents and newspaper or magazine articles.
from "About the Congressional Record."
While speaking on the floor, a Member of Congress can request that material be added.
Wording to this effect is used: "I request unanimous consent that it printed in the Record."
The proceedings show: "There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows."
Each house allows for remarks to be added to the proceedings. Each house has created a visual way for readers to know this. These statements appear at the bottom of the first page of the proceedings of the respective house.
House
Senate
Note: these visual markers were not added until 1978. Prior to that, there was no way to distinguish what was said and what was added.