In April, Robert shared the news about how we enhanced the display of historical bill text on Congress.gov. One of the longer term projects we have been working on, also related to historical material, has been to add the Bound Congressional Record to Congress.gov. Robert announced that our first Congress with the Bound Congressional Record, which is the 103rd, was added to the site in the summer of 2020. Since then, we have regularly been adding, testing, and reviewing additional Congresses all the way back to when the Bound Congressional Record started. We now have the Bound Congressional Record from the 46th to 103rd Congress on the site, which covers 1873 to 1994.
Now if you are browsing the Senate’s website and see something like Landmark Legislation: Civil Rights Act of 1875 you can find out more on Congress.gov. That item mentions the date February 27, 1875. You can go to Congress.gov and find those debates. Scroll to page 1861 and look for the term “Civil Rights” to learn more. Keep reading to the end of the section to see the final vote.

Enhancements
For May, the Congress.gov enhancements include:
Enhancement – Congressional Record – Bound Edition
- The Congressional Record Bound edition is now available for the 43rd through 46th Congress (December 1873-1881).
Congress.gov Tip
Congress.gov recently added new fields to help you do date searching of the Bound Congressional Record:
- crArticleVolume: (e.g., “137”)
- crIssuePartNumber: (e.g., “25”)
- congSessionNum: (e.g., “1” thru “9”)
- crArticleDateStr: (e.g., “1901-03-01”)
Most-Viewed Bills
The most-viewed bills for the week of May 7, 2023 are as follows:
1. | H.R.2811 [118th] | Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023 |
2. | S.686 [118th] | RESTRICT Act |
3. | H.Res.57 [117th] | Impeaching Joseph R. Biden, President of the United States, for abuse of power by enabling bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors. |
4. | S.1207 [118th] | EARN IT Act of 2023 |
5. | H.R.734 [118th] | Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023 |
6. | S.3538 [117th] | EARN IT Act of 2022 |
7. | H.R.2617 [117th] | Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 |
8. | S.2881 [116th] | 5G Spectrum Act of 2019 |
9. | H.R.82 [118th] | Social Security Fairness Act of 2023 |
10. | H.R.79 [118th] | WHO Withdrawal Act |
Subscribe to In Custodia Legis – it’s free! – to receive interesting posts drawn from the Law Library of Congress’s vast collections and our staff’s expertise in U.S., foreign, and international law.