<P> By custom and rules of each house, members also frequently "revise and extend" their remarks made on the floor before the debates are published in the Congressional Record . Therefore, for many years, speeches that were not delivered in Congress appeared in the Congressional Record, including in the sections purporting to be verbatim reports of debates . In recent years, however, these revised remarks have been preceded by a "bullet" symbol or, more recently and currently, printed in a typeface discernibly different from that used to report words spoken by members . </P> <P> The Congressional Record is publicly available for records before 1875 via the Library of Congress' American Memory Century of Lawmaking website and since 1989 via Congress.gov (which replaced the THOMAS database in 2016). For the time period in between, the records are not freely available online, but are commonly found in large library systems or college libraries . </P> <P> The Constitution, in Article I, Section 5, requires Congress to keep a journal of its proceedings, although the House and Senate Journals are separate publications from the Congressional Record, and include only a record of actions and votes, rather than verbatim texts of the debates . </P> <P> The Congressional Record was first published in 1873 . Prior to this, proceedings, roll calls, debates, and other records were recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789--1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824--1837), or the Congressional Globe (1833--1873). A digital collection of these historical volumes is now available online via the Library of Congress . </P>

When does a record of how members of congress voted on an issue have to be recorded in the journal
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