WHAT IS THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD?
The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and the debates of the United States Congress. It includes the text of House and Senate floor debates, which are discussions in favor of and in opposition to a bill that can shed light on the intended effects of a piece of legislation. (Sponsors' and committee chairs' statements can be especially illuminating.)
About the Congressional Record, provided by Congress.gov, is very informative.
TWO VERSIONS OF CITATIONS TO THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
The Congressional Record is available in two formats: the Daily Edition and the Bound Edition.
The Daily Edition's pagination is unique. The House of Representatives and the Senate have their own sections with pages numbers such as:
H423 (a page of text from the House of Representatives section)
S1585 (a page of text from the Senate section)
There are other letter-number combinations, such as E141 (a page from the Extension of Remarks section).
The Bound Edition collects a year's worth of Daily Editions into one volume. However, it eliminates the special pagination and is simply numbered consecutively from page 1 through page xxxxx, where xxxxx is the last page of the last entry for that year.
When you have a cite to the Congressional Record, look closely at the citation, especially the page number format.
Daily Edition citation: contains a page number that starts with a letter.
Bound Edition citation: includes a volume + a numeric-only page number.
The cite will determine which version of the Congressional Record you need to use to find the entry.
OLDER CONGRESSIONAL JOURNALS
The Library of Congress and Hein Online both provide access to Congressional journals that predate the Congressional Record, such as Annals of Congress. See below.
Congress.gov provides:
Congressional Record, 1881 -
Browse by volume and page number (using the dropdown menu) or enter a date.
1881 - 1994: Bound Editions only.
1995 - present: Daily Editions only.
Use Govinfo, below, for more recent Bound Editions.
GovInfo.gov and The Library of Congress provide:
Congressional Record on GovInvo:
Daily Edition 1994 -.
Bound Edition 1873-2017.
Earlier Congressional Journals (Library of Congress):
Annals of Congress 1789-1824
Register of Debates 1824-1837
Congressional Globe 1873-1875
Lexis provides the following:
Congressional Record 1989 - (In the main search box, type "committee reports" Select Congressional Record from the sources listed in the drop down menu)
Congressional Record Retro 1873-1997 (In the main search box, type "congressional record" Select Congressional Record Retro 1873-1997 from the sources listed in the drop down menu)
Congressional Record 1977--2008 can be found in the Library's Microfiche Collection.
HeinOnline provides:
In the U.S. Congressional Documents Collection:
Congressional Record Bound and Daily Versions 1980 -
Also, the three predecessor titles: Annals of Congress (1789-1824), Register of Debates (1824-1837) Congressional Globe (1833-1873),
ProQuest Congressional provides:
Congressional Record 1985 - Select Congressional Record Daily Edition under the Advanced Search option.