Federal Legislative History

For document availability by date and by source, see this chart.

Transcripts of debates and speeches made on the floor of the Senate and House of Representatives are available in the Congressional Record. It also contains a summary of Congressional activity, called the Daily Digest. This summary includes information about bills and amendments, hearings scheduled, and committee reports filed.

The Congressional Record is published each day that Congress is in session. It is divided into four sections (House of Representatives, Senate, Extension of Remarks, and Daily Digest). The pages of the Daily version are paginated to indicate the section (H#, S#, E#, and D#). At the end of the year, the Daily Congressional Record is published in a permanent, edition, the Bound version, and the page numbers are changed to sequential numbers. HeinOnline has a handy tool for converting Daily page numbers to Bound page numbers.

Sources for floor debate are listed below. Also, see our Chart - Sources for Legislative Documents.

Prior to 1873, floor debate, speeches and other information on Congressional activities are available in these publications:

• Congressional Globe, 23rd to 42nd Congress (1833-1873).
• Register of Debates in Congress, 18th Congress to 25th Congress (1825-1837).
• Annals of Congress, 1st Congress to 18th Congress (1789-1824).

All of these publications are available on Microfiche in our Government Documents collection, as well as on HeinOnline.