The Clerk of the House and Secretary of the Senate
Summary
Two chamber officers, chosen by the House and Senate rather than appointed, together cost about $102.5 million and 523 people to run in fiscal 2026 -- and they are the only two offices that certify how Congress voted, having recorded 362 House roll calls and 659 Senate roll calls in 2025 alone.
What is this organization?
What does it do?
Both run the machinery behind a recorded vote. In 2025 the Clerk's Electronic Voting System tallied 362 House roll calls⧉ across 72 floor voting stations⧉, one duty among the 255-employee, nine-division office⧉ that also enrolls bills and keeps the House Journal. The Senate has no electronic system: under Senate rules the Secretary delegates calling the roll to the Legislative Clerk⧉, who called it aloud for 659 recorded votes in the 119th Congress's first session⧉.
What does it cost to run — money and people?
Congress enacted $48.99 million for the Office of the Clerk⧉ and, separately, $35.70 million plus $17.85 million for the Office of the Secretary⧉ for fiscal year 2026 -- $102.5 million combined. That funds 255 Clerk FTEs⧉ and an estimated 268 Secretary positions⧉, 523 people total. Against the Census Bureau's 341.8 million U.S. residents⧉, that's about $0.30 per person.
View data as table
| Office of the Secretary (Senate) | 53.5 | 268 positions |
|---|---|---|
| Office of the Clerk (House) | 49 | 255 FTE |
Why is it good for society?
Neither office answers to a president or a party whip -- that independence is what turns a floor tally into a legal record instead of a leadership press release; no bill is enrolled and no vote counts toward a member's record until one of these offices certifies it. Certification used to be the bottleneck: 1913 testimony pegged an average roll call at 45 minutes, consuming 275 hours a Congress⧉. The House's electronic system, first used in 1973⧉, cut that to as little as two minutes -- part of why the Clerk certified 362 separate votes last year, a pace the old arithmetic couldn't have afforded.
- Combined, the two offices cost $102.5 million and 523 people in FY2026 -- about $0.30 per U.S. resident -- to keep the official record of how Congress voted.
- The Clerk's own FY2027 request testimony (5.71% above 'our fiscal year 2026 enacted level') reverse-computes to $48.99 million, matching the enacted figure in P.L. 119-37 -- an independent, two-document confirmation of the same number.
Your handles.* Look up how your own representative voted on any recorded House vote via the Clerk's roll call vote index (searchable by member, bill, or date). Look up your senators' votes via the Senate's roll call vote lists⧉. To request historical, non-current House records -- bills, committee prints, and other archived documents -- contact the Clerk's Legislative Resource Center.
Sources(10) ▾
- U.S. Government Publishing Office (enacted law), Public Law 119-37 -- Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026 (Division C: Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2026) (2025-11-12) — The actual enacted FY2026 Legislative Branch appropriations law (H.R. 5371, signed Nov. 12, 2025) -- Division C, Title I gives the exact enacted dollar figures for the House's Office of the Clerk and the Senate's Office of the Secretary this entry's budget KPI and chart rest on. Superseded an earlier, slightly lower Senate committee-recommended figure for the Office of the Secretary (see doc-senate-report-119-38). Wayback's save endpoint returned HTTP 520 at retrieval time (the newsroom's documented current archive.org outage); archiveUrl is null and the govinfo URL itself serves as the one-click original-document link. govinfo.gov · original document
- Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives (The Honorable Kevin F. McCumber), Statement Before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch on the Office of the Clerk FY 2027 Budget Request (2026-03-17) — The Clerk's own sworn testimony to his appropriators -- source for the office's count, division count, Electronic Voting System station count, and (via the stated 5.71% FY2027-over-FY2026 growth rate) an independent cross-check of the enacted FY2026 dollar figure in doc-plaw11937. Wayback's save endpoint returned HTTP 520 at retrieval time; archiveUrl is null and the docs.house.gov URL is the one-click original-document link. docs.house.gov · original document
- Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Clerk Electronic Voting System -- Roll Call Votes, 2025 (2025-12-18) — The Clerk's own primary roll-call-vote index for calendar year 2025; the highest-numbered entry (Roll Call 362, Dec. 18) is this entry's House workload figure. Wayback's save endpoint returned HTTP 520 at retrieval time; archiveUrl is null. clerk.house.gov · original document
- U.S. Senate (Office of the Secretary), U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes -- 119th Congress, 1st Session (2025) (2025-12-18) — The Senate's own primary roll-call-vote index for the 119th Congress's first session; the highest-numbered entry (Vote 659, Dec. 18) is this entry's Senate workload figure. Wayback's save endpoint returned HTTP 520 at retrieval time; archiveUrl is null. senate.gov · original document
- U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senate Report 119-38 -- Legislative Branch Appropriations, 2026 (2025-08-01) — The Senate Appropriations Committee's report accompanying its version of the FY2026 Legislative Branch bill (S. 2257) -- this entry's source for the Office of the Secretary's FY2026 staffing estimate (268 positions). Its recommended salaries dollar figure ($35,083,000) was superseded by a slightly higher enacted figure ($35,695,000) in doc-plaw11937; the staffing estimate is used here as the best available FY2026 figure for that office, flagged as a committee estimate rather than an enacted count. Wayback's save endpoint returned HTTP 520 at retrieval time; archiveUrl is null. govinfo.gov · original document
- Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, History of the Office (1789 to Present) (2026-01-01) — The Clerk's own institutional history page -- source for the office's April 1, 1789 establishment and first Clerk John Beckley. Wayback's save endpoint returned HTTP 520 at retrieval time; archiveUrl is null. clerk.house.gov · original document
- U.S. Senate, Office of the Historian, Secretary of the Senate (Senate Historical Office briefing) (2026-01-01) — The Senate's own historical briefing on the Office of the Secretary -- source for the office's April 8, 1789 establishment, two days after the Senate's first quorum. Wayback's save endpoint returned HTTP 520 at retrieval time; archiveUrl is null. senate.gov · original document
- Congressional Research Service (mirrored by EveryCRSReport.com), Offices and Officials in the Senate: Roles and Duties (CRS Report R43532) (2024-01-01) — Nonpartisan report on Senate officers' duties -- source for the fact that the Secretary delegates calling the roll to the Legislative Clerk. Retrieved via EveryCRSReport.com's public mirror; congress.gov's own -product pages return HTTP 403 to automated fetches (a known access limitation for that host), and this mirror is an established source in this newsroom's other good-citizen entries. Wayback's save endpoint returned HTTP 520 at retrieval time; archiveUrl is null. everycrsreport.com · original document
- Congressional Research Service (mirrored by EveryCRSReport.com), Electronic Voting System in the House of Representatives: History and Usage (CRS Report R41862) (2011-06-13) — Nonpartisan history of the House's Electronic Voting System -- source for this entry's counterfactual (1913 testimony on average roll-call time before automation) and the January 23, 1973 first use of the system. Retrieved via EveryCRSReport.com's public mirror for the same access-limitation reason as doc-crs-r43532. Wayback's save endpoint returned HTTP 520 at retrieval time; archiveUrl is null. everycrsreport.com · original document
- U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Population Growth Slows Due to Historic Decline in Net International Migration (Vintage 2025 national population estimate) (2026-01-27) — The Census Bureau's own Vintage 2025 national population estimate release, giving the U.S. resident population as of July 1, 2025 -- the per-resident denominator for this entry's cost-per-person KPI, per better_metrics.md's sourced-denominator discipline. Same document and same sealed/archived capture already used by this series' good-citizen-gao and good-citizen-cbo entries. census.gov · original document
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The Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate are separate officers, one per chamber, chosen by their own house rather than appointed by a party or a president -- a power the Constitution reserves to each chamber alongside choosing a Speaker. The House first exercised it on April 1, 1789⧉, electing John Beckley its first Clerk; the Senate followed on April 8, 1789⧉, two days after reaching its first quorum. Together the two offices certify Congress's own record -- including how every member voted.