ENROLLING CLERK The House Enrolling-Daily Digest Clerk is responsible for the engrossing of Housepassed measures; the preparation of official messages and official papers for transmission to the Senate; and the ultimate enrolling of House bills (after passage in both the House and the Senate) for transmission to the White House for the President's signature into law. The Enrolling-Daily Digest Clerk's office is also responsible for producing the floor component of the House Daily Digest, (see Official Reporters to House Committees) a publication carried in the back of the Congressional Record each legislative day, which publishes a synopsis of House chamber actions for that day; information on House committeemeetings; and the forthcoming legislative schedule. The Enrolling-Digest Clerk also maintains the statistics of legislative activity and compiles the session-end "History of Public Bills" which is published in the last issue of the Congressional Record for that session of Congress. JOURNAL CLERK HT-13 The Capitol 5-5558 The Journal Clerk maintains the House Journal, which is the official record of the proceedings of the House. The keeping of a Journal by the House is prescribed in Article I, Section 5, of the U.S. Constitution. According to Jefferson's manual and Rules of the House of Representatives," the Journal records proceedings but not the reasons therefor or the circumstances attending, or the statements or opinions of Members." During sessions of the House, Members may sign or examine Discharge Petitions, which are kept at the Journal Clerk's desk at the rostrum. As with the Cloakrooms, the Clerk supervises the Page Services in close coordination with the Republican and Democratic Leadership. The Page Service consists of a total of 66 high school students. Each side maintains a separate but similar organizations, providing the following common services: • Hand delivery of materials of an urgent, official nature Maintain House floor supply of daily bills and reports • Distribute to members on the House floor copies of amendments as they are offered • Answer telephones in the Cloakrooms, calling Members to telephone, taking messages Flag deliveries • Runs to or from the Jefferson and Madison buildings of the Library of Congress · Runs to the Publications Distribution Service When requests for Page Service become heavy, priorities are given first to members' personal requests; secondly, items for delivery to members in the Chamber; Bills, Special Orders and Extensions of Remarks for delivery to the Floor; and items from Leadership offices. READING CLERK HT-13 The Capitol 5-7584 The two Reading Clerks share the duty of reading aloud whatever needs to be read to the House, particularly the bills under consideration, and the texts of privileged resolutions, amendments, motions, letters, and messages. They are also the custodians of Senate bills and resolutions, and of senate amendments to house-originated legislation. These papers are maintained under lock at the Speaker's Desk, and arrangements to inspect them may be made through the Reading Clerks or the Parliamentarian's Office. Reading Clerks deliver all messages to the Senate concerning actions by the House. They should be notified whenever extraordinary handling is needed. OFFICIAL REPORTERS TO HOUSE COMMITTEES 1718 LHOB 5-2627 Daily Digest (Committees): 5-2868 The offices of the Official Reporters to House Committees and the Daily Digest are under the supervisory authority of the Clerk and work directly with the committees and subcommittees of the House to arrange for stenographic reporting coverage of hearings, markups and meetings, and for preparing committee activity reports for publication in the Congressional Record as it relates to the Daily Digest. The Official Reporters coordinate services with the designated committee staff liaison to assure complete and timely coverage and transcript production. The Daily Digest editor collects scheduling information from all House committees in order to create an accurate schedule of all hearings being held that day. This material is printed in each day's Congressional Record. The information includes weekly and daily committee schedules; a report on each committee or subcommittee that met on a particular day; whether the session was open or executive; legislative action taken by the committee; and a tabulation of witnesses who testified. OFFICIAL REPORTERS OF DEBATES HT-60 5-5621 The primary mission of the Official Reporters of Debates is the daily reporting and transcribing of the debates and proceedings that make up the House segment of the Congressional Record. Revisions to and extensions of remarks in compliance with the Rules of the House are administered by this office in coordination with Members of Congress. TALLY CLERK HT-13 The Capitol 5-7347 The Tally Clerk administers the floor voting process, the filing of reports by House committees, and the arranges for the compilation of the House Calendar. Tally Clerks operate the Electronic Voting System and assist Members voting from the Well. Through the Tally Clerk, Members may arrange to receive data relating to their own voting history and percentages. Committees that favorably report bills to the House file the original of the report with the Tally Clerk. Once the bill that accompanies the report has been filed with the House, the Speaker assigns it a House calendar. The Tally Clerk then assigns the next sequential calendar number, as well as the next report number to the bill. Committee staff are encouraged to work closely with the Tally Clerks, who are skilled in ensuring that reports contain all necessary elements and endorsements. AUXILIARY FLOOR SERVICES CONGRESSWOMEN'S SUITE MEMBERS' FAMILY ROOM H-324 The Capitol 5-0622 Members of Congress are encouraged and invited to visit these facilities attended by staff of the Office of the Clerk. Further information concerning these facilities may obtained from the Office of the Clerk. INFORMATION & RESOURCE SERVICES HISTORIAN B-18 CHOB 5-1153 您 The Office of the Historian operates under the supervision of the Clerk and is responsible for conducting research on the history of the House of Representatives. Through a program of publications, the Office has made its findings available to Members, staff and constituents as well as to an audience of scholars and the media. The office seeks to encourage others in further research on the history of the House and works to make the records of that history more accessible to scholars, journalists, and students of the institution. The office serves as a reference source for House offices and the public. It also seeks to coordinate students and scholars interested in the history of the legislative branch of government and to increase awareness of resource for the study of the House of Representatives. LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION (LEGIS) 5-1772 The Office of Legislative Information (LEGIS) serves as a primary source for information on the status of legislation. The LEGIS Office is a computer-supported centralized legislative status service for storing, retrieving, and disseminating information. LEGIS was primarily designed to provide an individualized service, to assist those who have a need to trace the progress of House and Senate legislation through the legislative process, in an accurate, timely and effective manner. It is available to Members of the House and Senate. government agencies, and the general public. The LEGIS Office accepts queries about the status of legislation by telephone or by mail. Generally, requests for information are made by telephone and a verbal response is provided within seconds, however, printed responses are available on request. LEGIS is solely responsible for collecting House committee and subcommittee activity. presidential actions and law numbers. LEGIS receives other data from the following source: Office of Legislative Operations, Senate Library, White House, Library of Congress, National Archives, GPO, and the Federal Register. As a supplement to telephone inquiries, LEGIS provides on request, a legislative status report known as Automatic Dissemination of Legislative Information (Autotracking), members and Committees who have a long term interest in specific legislation can subscribe to this service. Updated reports on these measures are provided when there is action on the legislation. LEGIS also provides quarterly profiles for each Member consisting of a cumulative list of all legislation sponsored or cosponsored by a Member. LIBRARY OF THE HOUSE The Library of the House of Representatives is a legislative and legal reference library comprising approximately 100,000 volumes. It has been maintained by the Clerk of the House for the use of Members since the Second Congress (1792). In recent years the library's services have been extended to other federal agencies and offices, and its reading room is open to the general public. Except by special arrangement, borrowing privileges are limited to House offices. The House Library is independent of, and has no connection with the Library of Congress, except in an historical sense, when the latter was established in the Seventh Congress as an offshoot of the House and Senate Libraries. The House Library is the legal and official depository of all published documents originated and produced by the House and its committees. Its principal holdings are the following: House and Senate Journals (1st Congress) Congressional Directories (40th Congress) |