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U.S. Federal Legislative Information: Floor Debate

Finding bills, laws, congressional debate, voting records, hearings and more

Floor Debate

Floor debate is the discussion of a proposal on the floor of the U.S. House or Senate.

An (edited) transcript is published in the Congressional Record.

Excellent primary source.

Video

Congressional Chronicle (C-SPAN)
1979-
Houselive.gov
Video feeds from the House Floor
Metavid
Searchable video and machine-generated transcripts of House and Senate proceedings;
2005-

Annals of Congress/Congressional Globe/Congressional Record

	Coverage	Search Tips
Library of Congress	1789-1875	Legislative action often spans more than one congressional session. For all debate on a bill, you may need to use multiple years of the Record. Use the index to identify specific speakers, topics or laws. Hein has a search by citation feature.
Hein Online	1789-2006 Bound; 1990- Daily
Print and some fiche (MSU GovDocs NonCirc 3W): Bound edition	1873-
Proquest Congressional: Daily Congressional Record	1789-1999; 1985-present	Search by Member of Congress, subject, roll call votes, full text and bills, laws and resolutions. Use the Search by Number function to search by citation. Use the Daily Congressional Record link on the sidebar to search 1985-present.
FDsys: Congressional Record Daily	1994- full text; 1999-2000 Bound; 1983- Daily index;	FDSys has a search by citation feature.