Snoopers Tip 3: Your Daily Dose: The Congressional Record’s Daily Digest

Here’s a quick Snoopers Tip that makes it easy to keep up with the daily doings – or undoings – of both the House and the Senate. We’ve not talked about the Congressional Record yet in our Snoopers Tips, but we’ve all heard of the Record or used it from time to time. The Government Printing Office (GPO) describes it:

“The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. . . At the back of each daily issue is the ‘Daily Digest,’ which summarizes the day’s floor and committee activities.”

This quick Snoopers Tip relates to the Daily Digest summary, online daily with a delay of one legislative day. For instance, today (2-11-09), the Tuesday, February 10th Daily Digest is online (sample page pictured at left). It briefly describes the House and Senate bills (“measures”) considered, committee meetings, and other information like bills introduced, executive branch communications to Congress, and other items included in Tuesday’s Congressional business. The entries in the Daily Digest are quite short, and often are only references to the pages of the Congressional Record where the full text appears. So, you’re thinking, “I’m going to have to run all over the net to find the Congressional Record pages I’m interest in! Dammit, Mike,” you’re thinking, “you are a useless bag of wind!” In most cases, yes, I might agree, but on this point I’m pretty solid.

Here’s the really useful part: The Daily Digest online LINKS DIRECTLY via hyperlinks to the ACTUAL Congressional Record pages referenced in the Daily Digest! And, yes, that does deserve an exclamation point!

So, here’s how to use a bookmark that you can look at each morning to see what’s up in Congress:

(1) Here’s the primary link for your Snoopers Tips bookmarks folder.

(2) That link will take you to the HTML version of the Digest for the previous day, Feb. 11. You can work directly from the HTML version, BUT I STRONGLY advise using the .pdf version.

(3) Here’s how: On the HTML page you’ll find a link : “GPO’s PDF.” Go ahead and click on that link. It’ll take you to the digitized Congressional Record Daily Digest. Once there, first have a look around and you’ll note that the Digest is about 5 pages long (usually) and includes House and Senate proceedings separately.

(4) Now, go ahead and pick some topic of interest, perhaps the bill about nanotechnology research that was approved on Feb. 11th in the House. You’ll see that the text includes (in bold type) a reference to Congressional Record pages. It’ll look something like “H1132-1135.”

(5) Now the best part: Look at the bottom of the page and find the button “Go to Page” Simply enter the first page of the pages you want to review, in this case, about the nanotechnology proposal. SOME ADVICE: Right click on the “Go to Page” and open it in a new window or tab. That way you won’t leave the Daily Digest main page over and over again and have to go back, go back, go back . . .

Going to the actual Congressional Record pages puts you right in the House and Senate chambers where you can read the actual debate. At first, the text “thickness” looks mind-numbing, but you can simply scan it for the main points, and after a short while you’ll get accustomed to it. (Remember too, you can always enlarge the type with browser controls.)

(6) Finally – and we discussed this in another Snoopers Tip (#1) about the House Clerk – for House proceedings you can get an advance view of the next day’s Daily Digest topics on the actual day of the House proceedings. In the evening, just go to the House Clerk’s Office homepage and click on – in this example – the “11” (for Feb. 11th) on the calendar in the middle of the homepage. There you are, the House Clerk’s official chronicle of the day’s activities. The Senate doesn’t have a comparable feature.

(7) One final tip: Here’s where you can get and print (if you’re wonky enough) the “Days in Session Calendars” for the House and Senate. That way you can plan your vacations around when the Congress will not be in session. You wouldn’t want to be away for even a single day of the 111th Congress. Would you?

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