Clerk of the United States House of Representatives

Updated on Oct 20, 2023

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Style Madam Clerk Inaugural holder John Beckley		Appointer Elected by the House Website Office of the Clerk

Term length Pleasure of the House (nominally a two-year Congress)

The Clerk of the United States House of Representatives is an officer of the United States House of Representatives, whose primary duty is to act as the chief record-keeper for the House.

Along with the other House officers, the Clerk is elected every two years when the House organizes for a new Congress. The majority and minority caucuses nominate candidates for the House officer positions after the election of the Speaker. The full House adopts a resolution to elect the officers, who will begin serving after they have taken the oath of office.

The current Clerk is Karen L. Haas, of Maryland. She replaced Lorraine C. Miller at the beginning of the 112th Congress. Robert Reeves is Deputy Clerk and Gigi Kelaher is Senior Advisor to the Clerk.

The Constitution of the United States states in Article 1, Section 2, “The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers...” On April 1, 1789, when the House of Representatives convened with its first quorum, its initial order of business was the election of the Speaker, Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg, a Representative from Pennsylvania. The next order of business was the election of the Clerk, John Beckley, Esquire, a citizen of Virginia.

The first five Clerks of the House also served as Librarian of Congress, which became a separate position in 1815. South Trimble, a former Representative from Kentucky, who served as Clerk from 1911 to 1919 and again from 1931 to 1946, is the longest-tenured Clerk in House history.

Duties

Every two years regular congressional elections are held. Only one-third of Senators' terms expire at each of these elections, but the terms of office of the entire House end. The Senate has remained in constant existence since it first went into session in 1789 but the House goes out of existence (and hence a "new" Congress takes office) every two years. To preserve the legal continuity of the House, the existence of the House is vested in the Clerk at the end of each two-year term. Thus, when the newly elected members of the House gather on January 3, it is the Clerk who summons Representatives and convenes the new Congress for the first time. Accordingly, the Clerk gavels the House into session, chairs the body as it adopts its rules of order, and oversees the election of a Speaker under those rules. The Speaker then takes the chair and the House proceeds with its business (which includes electing a Clerk for the new session). Were the House not to vest such personality in the Clerk, there would be no legally empowered authority to convene the session and lead the House in its first few acts.

As stated in Rule II of the House Rules, the Clerk is required to:

prepare the roll of Members-elect.

call the Members-elect to order at the commencement of each Congress; to call the roll of Members-elect, and, pending the election of the Speaker, to preserve order and decorum; and to decide all questions of order.

prepare and distribute at the beginning of every session a list of reports required to be made to Congress.

note all questions of order, and decisions thereon, and to print these as an appendix to the Journal of each session of the House.

prepare and print the House Journal after each session of Congress, and to distribute the Journal to Members and to the executive and the legislature of each State.

attest and affix the seal of the House to all writs, warrants, and subpoenas and formal documents issued by the House.

certify the passage by the House of all bills and joint resolutions.

receive messages from the President and the Senate when the House is not in session.

prepare and deliver messages to the Senate and otherwise as requested by the House.

retain, in the official library, a permanent set of the books and documents generated by the House.

manage the office and supervise the staff of any vacant Member (the vacancy may have occurred by expulsion, resignation, or death) until a successor is elected.

In addition, the Clerk:

acts as custodian of all noncurrent records of the House, pursuant to Rule VII.

is responsible, under the supervision and direction of the U.S. House of Representatives Fine Arts Board, for the administration, maintenance, and display of the works of fine art and other similar property of the Congress for display or for other use in the House wing of the Capitol, the House Office Buildings, or any other location under the control of the House (P.L. 100-696). In addition, pursuant to the rules of the United States Preservation Commission, the Clerk may be asked to provide staff support and assistance to the Commission.

History

On April 1, 1789, the House of Representatives convened with its first quorum. Its initial order of business was the election of the Speaker, Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg, a Representative from Pennsylvania. The next order of business was the election of the Clerk, John Beckley, a citizen of Virginia. Although the Clerk's title is derived from that of the Clerk of the British House of Commons, the duties are similar to those prescribed for the Secretary of the Continental Congress in March 1785.

In addition to the duties involved in organizing the House and presiding over its activities at the commencement of each Congress, the Clerk is charged with a number of legislative functions; some of these, such as the constitutional requirement of maintaining the House Journal, have existed from the time of the first Congress, whereas others have been added over the years because of changes in procedure and organization.

Offices and Services

In addition to the Clerk's Main Office, located in H154 of the U.S. Capitol, there are nine offices that fall under the Clerk's jurisdiction.

Capitol Service Groups

The Capitol Service Groups provide support services to the maintenance of the Republican and Democratic Cloakrooms, the Lindy Claiborne Boggs Congressional Women’s Reading Room, the Members and Family Committee Room, and the Capitol Prayer Room.

House Page Program

Pages were high school juniors who served as support staff for the U.S. House of Representatives, either for one of two school semester sessions or one of two summer sessions. The program was discontinued in 2011.

Legislative Computer Systems (LCS)

The Legislative Computer Systems office provides technical support for offices under the Clerk and maintains the electronic voting system on the House floor.

Legislative Resource Center (LRC)

The Legislative Resource Center (LRC), a division of the Office of the Clerk, supports House legislative functions and keeps the public informed about the House and its legislative activities. LRC ensures that House-related information is accessible to all.

Legislative Information

LRC supplies House Members with the documents under consideration on the House Floor. LRC also gathers and verifies information on actions by House Committees and the President of the United States regarding legislation. The data are stored in the Legislative Information Management System (LIMS), an in-house system that tracks all legislation from its introduction on the Floor to its signing by the President.

Through two functions, the United States House of Representatives Library and the House Document Room, LRC serves as the repository and a disseminator of official House legislative documents and publications. The Library’s collection comprises more than 200,000 volumes, as well as legislative and legal databases. The House Document Room stores hard copies of legislative documents and publications from the current and two preceding Congresses, and makes them available to the public upon request, free of charge.

In addition, LRC responds to inquiries from congressional staff and the public regarding legislative information about Congress.

Public Disclosure

LRC manages and serves as the customer service contact for lobbying disclosure filings, as well as public disclosure forms from all House Officers, Members, and staff. The Center provides filers with forms and guidance on filing procedures, and responds to inquiries about disclosure from filers and others.

LRC gathers, organizes, and retains disclosure registrations and reports, and makes them accessible to the public, on-site and virtually.

House Membership Information

LRC compiles and publishes these official lists and informational publications about the House:

Official lists of Members

The list of House standing Committees and subcommittees

The House telephone directory

House office building directories

Nominee and election statistics (presidential and congressional).

Support for Congressional Offices

LRC works with the Government Printing Office to support congressional offices with orders for official stationery and envelopes and other print services.

Office of Art and Archives

The Office of Art and Archives collects, preserves, and interprets the artifacts and records of the House. The office is responsible for the House's historical documentation, the House Collection of Fine Art and Artifacts, and the official records of the House from 1789 to the present. The House Curator and Chief of the office, Farar Elliott, curates the House Collection of several thousand objects. The House Archivist, Robin Reeder, processes the records of the House and oversees their eventual safe transfer to the National Archives. Together with the Historian of the House, the Curator and Archivist oversee the institution's website History, Art & Archives of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Office of House Employment Counsel (OHEC)

This office provides advice about employment practices and acts as legal representation for all employing authorities in the House.

Office of Legislative Operations

This office coordinates the services of the Bill and Enrolling Clerks, the Journal Clerks, the Tally Clerks, the Daily Digests, and the Floor Action Reporting.

The Office of Legislative Operations provides support pertaining to the Clerk's legislative duties. Among the duties of this office are receiving and processing official papers; compiling and publishing the daily minutes of House proceedings; operating the electronic voting system and overseeing the recording of votes; preparing messages to the Senate regarding passed legislation; and reading the bills, resolutions, amendments, motions, and Presidential messages that come before the House. The Office of Legislative Operations also prepares the summaries and schedules of House activities published in the Daily Digest section of the Congressional Record.

Bill Clerks

A Bill Clerk receives and processes official papers including introduced bills and resolutions, amendments and additional co-sponsors.

Journal Clerks

A Journal Clerk compiles the daily minutes of House proceedings and publishes these in the House Journal at the end of each session. The House Journal is the official record of the proceedings maintained in accordance with Article I, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution.

Tally Clerks

A Tally Clerk operates the electronic voting system, oversees the recording of votes on the House Floor, receives reports of Committees, and prepares the Calendar of the United States House of Representatives and History of Legislation.

Enrolling Clerks

An Enrolling Clerk prepares all messages to the Senate regarding passed legislation, the official engrossed copy of all House-passed measures, and the official enrollment of all House-originated measures that have cleared both bodies of Congress.

Reading Clerks

A Reading Clerk is responsible for the reading of all bills, resolutions, amendments, motions and Presidential Messages that come before the House; reports formally to the Senate all legislative actions taken by the House.

Office of Publication Services (OPS)

This office processes official print orders, such as those for letterhead and envelopes, for the House and produces official House publications, including the Official List of Members, the Capitol Directory Card, and the House Telephone Directory. This office also develops and maintains the Clerk’s official Web site and the Kids in the House Web site.

Official Reporters

This office transcribes House proceedings verbatim for publication in the Congressional Record and provides stenographic support to committees for all hearings, meetings, and mark-up sessions.

References

Clerk of the United States House of Representatives Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

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