Reporters of debate record everything said and done in the House and Senate chambers and publish an edited version of the proceedings the next day in the Congressional Record. Members may edit and revise their remarks and may include full texts in place of the condensed speeches they delivered on the floor. The Record reflects Congress's attitudes and legislative intent, making it the first place to begin any research on Congress and the legislative process.
The Constitution does not require the House and Senate to keep a verbatim, or word-for-word, record, only that they publish journals from time to time. These legislative and executive journals are short minutes of the proceedings. So the Congressional Record is not a legal requirement but something that evolved from the notes that journalists made of the speeches and published in their newspapers. Joseph Gales and William Seaton recorded the debates for their Washington newspaper, the National Intelligencer. In 1824, Gales and Seaton began publishing these as the Register of Debates. They also compiled the speeches of the earliest Congresses in a series called the Annals of Congress. In 1833, Francis Blair and John C. Rives launched a rival publication, the Congressional Globe. Because Gales and Seaton were Whigs and Blair and Rives were Democrats, members of Congress sometimes viewed reporters from their publications as partisans who deliberately distorted congressional speeches. But it was not partisanship so much as primitive stenography and poor acoustics that hobbled the reporters.
Beginning in 1848, Congress put the reporters of debate on its payroll to ensure impartiality. That same year, the new Pitman system of stenography greatly improved the reporters’ accuracy. The Congressional Globe remained a private publication until 1873, when the Government Printing Office took over the project and began publishing the Congressional Record as a government document.
Over time the Congressional Record has undergone many stylistic changes. In addition to their speeches, members are permitted to reprint newspaper and magazine articles and other items that they want their colleagues to read. It is against the rules, however, to reprint editorial cartoons. That rule was made in 1913 after Senator Benjamin Tillman (Democrat-South Carolina) put in the Record a cartoon of a cow being fed by western farmers and milked by eastern financiers.
Remarks that representatives do not actually read on the floor are printed in the “Extensions of Remarks” section at the back of the Record. Senators rarely use this section and instead ask for unanimous consent that their remarks be included in the Record as if they had been delivered on the floor. Such provisions speed up proceedings on the floor while still allowing members to compile a comprehensive record on the issues.
Since 1947, a Daily Digest has appeared at the back of the Congressional Record as a summary and index of floor proceedings and committee business of the day. Once a Congress has ended, the Government Printing Office combines the daily Congressional Records into a fully indexed, permanent edition.
See also Daily Digest; Reporters of debate
Sources
- Donald A. Ritchie, Press Gallery: Congress and the Washington Correspondents (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991)
