Mr. Winger also commented favorably about C-SPAN’s coverage of third parties. We will use his comment as a reminder that you can find past debates and interviews with third party members in the Video Library. Just type Green Party, Libertarian Party, Constitution Party, or Communist Party, USA in the search box and you will find the wide away of parties in the U.S. and how their activities have been covered by C-SPAN.

Barney Frank both gave an apology and was the subject of one by Majority Leader Armey.

Three other notable speeches of apology or near apology were Livingston, McKinney, and Thomas.

Each of these speeches arose from a different set of circumstances. Each has a different level of apology or contriteness. What binds them all, however, is that they are delivered in the well of the House – colleague to colleagues. In each case, the speaker realizes that they have broken faith with the norms of behavior. While there is a tendency to try to avoid confronting these cases, there comes a time when action is taken or when the member feels he or she must rise up and address his colleagues and if not offer an apology, at least proffer an explanation.

All but one member of the Judiciary Committee spoke on the floor about the nomination. Senator Feingold (D-WI) did not speak. All the elected party leadership except for Senator Alexander (R-TN) also spoke. This means that there were thirty-five senators who were not part of the committee or the leadership who came to the floor to speak on the nomination. The Republicans dominated this group with twenty-two speaking while only twelve Democrats plus the one Independent, (Lieberman I-CT), spoke.

Modern Senate debate consists of serial speeches where one senator follows another to state their position. Looking at the video record, there appeared to be little if any engagement of senators with each other debating the nomination.

All these debates can be be found in the Congressional Chronicle under Senate Session the dates they occurred. The remarks are all labeled either Kagan nomination or executive session. C-SPAN has also collected all of the speeches by day. They can be found at ww.c-span.org/kagan>. You can look back and view the debates and listen for yourself or even do further analysis using the Video Library.

A late 1982 interview with Rep. Millicent Fenwick is now digitized and available in the Video Library. Recognized by others for her philosophical observations about life and politics, she quotes from the Bible and poetry. She discusses the corrupting influence of power in the House citing her clash with the chairman of the Administration Committee. Her observations on money, advertising, and politics are prescient. She gives her reactions on leaders such as Tip O’Neill, Bob Michel, Jim Wright, and Trent Lott. This interview is a step back in time in a charming interview with a scrupulous politician.

This is one of the two I.F. Stone recordings in the collection. The other is a National Press Club Speech that he delivered in 1988 a year before he died. He was 81 when the speech was given. Don’t miss these rare television appearances of an American independent journalist.

1. Spelling checking in the search. It will suggest alternatives if you misspell something.
2. A larger Flash player.
3. Links to Member official pages and official bios on Member of Congress pages.
4. A Member word search of congressional sessions. On the Congressional Chronicle page you can search for a member’s name (Obama) and a word (Iraq) and to find statements on the House or Senate floor on that subject.
5. The About page now has links to the three “How To” videos about the Video Library.

Look for these new features. We will continue to improve the Video Library and announce the changes in this space.

Try searching on H.R. 1 in the search box or from the bill search option on the Congress page. You will find filters to limit the search to the bill only (excluding amendments), to limit the stage that the bill reached, and the Congress. Note that there is an H.R. 1 every Congress.

You can also search by words. Searching for health care will bring up all programs dealing with health care where the word appears in the program description or the text. Now it will return all bills that have health care in the title. There are filters at the top of the page that allow you to see bills only by using the checks boxes at the top of the page.

We think that the bill search feature will allow users to find more references to bills on the House and Senate floor. Try it and let us know what you think.