The Congressional Record is a daily log of the activities of Congress, setting forth debates and speeches given in both the House and the Senate. It provides discussions, debates and voting records on proposed legislation. Bills, conference prints and reports may be available through the Congressional Record as well. Each session has an index which will give citations to the page of the Congressional Record in which any activity on a given bill took place. The Daily Digest is a summary of the Congressional Record and also provides information on debates, reports and conference committee meetings on bills.
In addition to being recorded in the Congressional Record, voting results can often be found in print indexes or online.
As you might imagine from its name, the Congressional Record is a catch-all for legislative history. In addition to debate, it captures calendars, votes and sometimes bill texts. Members of Congress can ask that any manner of documents be "read into the record." Consulting the index or using the full-text searching on HeinOnline will help you find materials in the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is published daily while Congress is in session. A permanent edition is produced once the session is complete and is the preferred citation. The daily and permanent editions differ in both content and organization (chiefly pagination). While each edition provides its own index, there is no table that tells where a page from the daily edition appears in the permanent edition, or vice versa. Though, HeinOnline has a Congressional Record Daily to Bound Locator for years 1986-2006.
