# Senate Committee and Administrative Archives

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Senate committee and administrative archival collections document floor activities, committee activities, and general Senate administration. The United States Constitution provides that "each House shall keep a Journal of its proceedings and from time to time publish the same." Accordingly, the earliest records of the Senate date from 1789 and include the manuscript rough minutes of chamber proceedings and the formal printed copy of the Journal. At the end of the first session of the First Congress, Secretary of the Senate Samuel A. Otis took possession of the minutes and other records for safekeeping, thus beginning the tradition of responsibility that remains with the Secretary's office to this day.

The records of the First Congress traveled by flatboat from New York City to Philadelphia in 1790, where Congress met for a decade prior to moving to Washington, DC, in November 1800. They were removed from Washington only once, when the British invaded and burned the Capitol on August 24, 1814. Miraculously, the records were saved when a quick-thinking clerk in the Secretary's office commandeered a farmer's wagon and removed them to the safety of a family farm in the Maryland countryside.

In March 1937, the Senate agreed to send nearly 3,600 cubic feet of its records to the newly established National Archives and Records Administration for preservation and provision of reference services. This material included records on measures referred to committees that were required by Senate rules to be returned to the Secretary of the Senate at the close of each session. At this time, there was no provision for disposition of materials that committees received directly from the executive, the agencies, or the public.

The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 greatly changed the nature and scope of the Senate's historic records preserved at the National Archives. While senators’ personal records would be handled separately, for the first time, committees were required to maintain records of their proceedings. The Secretary was given greater responsibility for all committee records. The statute stated:

"The Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representatives, acting jointly, shall obtain at the close of each Congress all the non-current records of the Congress and of each congressional committee and transfer them to the National Archives for preservation, subject to the orders of the Senate or the House of Representatives, respectively" (60 Stat 812).

Today, the Senate transfers approximately 900 cubic feet and 6 TB of records per year to the Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archives. The vast majority of this material consists of records of Senate committees, from Agriculture to Veterans' Affairs. It includes legislative files, treaty files, presidential nominations files, government oversight files, committee investigative records, and records relating to impeachment proceedings. The archives also includes records of the Secretary's office, bills, resolutions, amendments, reports and executive communications—the same kinds of material that have been preserved among the Senate's archives since 1789.

Public access to the records of the Senate in the National Archives is governed by S. Res. 474, 96th Congress. This covers all official Senate records except the records of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (the Watergate Committee), which is governed by S. Res. 393, 96th Congress. Under S. Res. 474, most records are open for research when they have been in existence for 20 years. Investigative files related to individuals and containing personal data, personnel records, and records of executive nominations are normally closed for 50 years to ensure protection of personal privacy. National security classified information remains closed until it is declassified.

For information about Senate records in the Center for Legislative Archives consult https://www.archives.gov/legislative or contact legislative.archives@nara.gov.

For access to Senate web harvests see the National Archives' Web Harvests at https://www.archives.gov/legislative/research/web-harvest.

        -  Bills, Acts, & Laws 
        -  Nominations 
        -  Treaties 
        -  Votes 
        -  Floor Proceedings 
        -  Rules & Procedure 
        -  Landmark Legislation 
        -  Sessions of Congress 
        -  Senate Archives 
        -  Public Disclosure 

### Questions about Senate History? 

Email a Senate historian:historian@sec.senate.gov