From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A page from the February 12, 1999 edition of the
Congressional
Record, published during the
impeachment trial of
former President Bill Clinton. Formal citation:
1999
Congressional
Record, Vol. 145, Page
26 .
The Congressional Record is the
official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is
published by the United States
Government Printing Office, and is issued daily when the United States
Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two
weeks. At the end of a session of Congress, the daily editions are
compiled in bound volumes constituting the permanent edition. The
Congressional Record is similar to the Hansards that report parliamentary debates
in the Westminster system of
government.
Overview
The Congressional Record consists of four sections: the
House section,
the Senate section, the Extensions of
Remarks, and (since the 1940s) the Daily Digest. At the back of
each daily issue is the Daily Digest, which summarizes the day's
floor and committee activities and serves as a table of contents
for each issue. The House and Senate sections contain proceedings
for the separate chambers of Congress.
That portion of the Congressional Record entitled Extensions of
Remarks contains speeches, tributes and other extraneous words that
were not actually uttered during open proceedings of the full
Senate or of the full House of Representatives. In years past, this
particular section of the Congressional Record has been called the
"Appendix." While Members of either body may insert material into
the Extensions of Remarks portion of the Record, Senators rarely do
so, and the overwhelming majority of what is found there is entered
at the request of Members of the House of Representatives. From a
legal standpoint, most materials in the Congressional Record are
classified as secondary authority.
By custom and rules of each House, Members also frequently
"revise and extend" the remarks they actually made on the floor
before the debates are published in the Congressional Record.
Therefore, for many years, speeches that were not actually
delivered in Congress appeared in the Record, including in the
sections purporting to be verbatim reports of debates. In recent
years, however, these revised remarks have been preceded by a
"bullet" symbol or, more recently and presently, printed in a typeface discernibly
different from that used to report words actually spoken by
Members.
History
The Constitution, in Article 1, Section 5, requires Congress to
keep a journal of its
proceedings, although the House and Senate Journals are separate
publications from the Congressional Record, and include only a
record of actions and votes, rather than that verbatim texts of the
debates.
The Congressional Record was first published in 1873.
Prior to this, proceedings, roll calls, debates, and other records
were recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of
the United States (1789 –1824), the Register of Debates in
Congress (1824 – 1837), or the Congressional Globe
(1833 – 1873). A digital collection of
these historical volumes is now available online via the Library of
Congress.
See also
External
links
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