Inside the Congressional Record: How history gets made as D.C. sleeps

Politics Inside the making of the Congressional Record: How history gets recorded as D.C. sleeps By Kaia Hubbard Kaia Hubbard Politics Reporter Kaia Hubbard is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital, based in Washington, D.C. Read Full Bio Kaia Hubbard May 22, 2026 / 6:00 AM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google Washington — Every night that Congress is in session, dozens of workers inside a hulking red-brick building blocks away from the Capitol pull off an unheralded feat, laying down the first draft of the history of Congress.At the heart of the building is a wide-open expanse, with tall ceilings and exposed ducts and rafters. Bright, industrial-strength lights illuminate printers the size of minivans, with enormous rolls of paper flying through them. The constant din of the machines is punctuated by electronic chirps and whirs.The building houses the Government Publishing Office, the agency responsible for producing the Congressional Record. Since 1873, the Record has served as the most complete daily account of what the people's representatives on Capitol Hill accomplished, or didn't, chronicling the monologues and the mundanities of the legislative process with precise formatting and meticulous editing.Its production is one of the unseen cogs in the congressional machine — known by few, but depended upon by many. The process begins with the words spoken on the floor of the House and Senate. The work to compile it largely happens as the rest of Washington sleeps. It arrives, with little fanfare, like a newspaper on the Capitol's doorstep every day.This is how it comes together.A "substantially verbatim" account of Congress Recent copies of the Congressional Record. Kaia Hubbard / CBS News Between the first Congress in 1789 and the lead-up to the Congressional Record's first publication in 1873, information on the internal workings of the legislative branch was sparse. A smattering of coverage by newspaper reporters made up a piecemeal account of t...