Store the words, the date, and the page
A statement in the file is a quotation or a labeled account of one. The quotation stores the words that were said, the date, and the place, plus the URL of the page that contains them. A newspaper summary, a staff recollection, and a clipped caption are descriptions by someone else. Label them that way. The opposition research page treats that label as part of the citation, not as a courtesy.
Identity comes first, the same way it does for a vote or a docket. Legal name, office, jurisdiction, and cycle. A shared surname on a hearing transcript is not yet this candidate. Write the filing name beside a nickname before you store the sentence.
Congressional remarks start in the Congressional Record
The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. GovInfo's help page states that, and it states what the site actually holds: Congressional Record on GovInfo. The help page says GovInfo contains Record volumes from volume 140 (1994) to the present, and that the current year's database is usually updated daily by 11 a.m. except when a late adjournment delays the issue. Debates for sessions before 1873 are in earlier series. The help page names those series and links them. Follow that page rather than a remembered archive.
A citation names the issue date, the chamber, and the page or granule you opened. GovInfo's help page shows the shape of a stable link: a package id such as CREC-YYYY-MM-DD, then the HTML or PDF granule. Open the granule and quote from that page. A member biography is not the speech. A bill summary is not the speech.
Congress.gov is the catalog of bills and members at congress.gov, and its API is documented at api.congress.gov. OppIntell's floor-speech source is configured to take daily Congressional Record metadata from the Congress.gov API and to confirm the body text on GovInfo. The sentence still cites the page that contains the words. A member with no stored speech has an empty statement line for that day. The absence is not filled with a paraphrase.
Campaign pages and official releases
Outside the Record, two source types cover a candidate's own public words on a published OppIntell briefing: an official campaign site, and a government press release. Save the full URL and the date you read it. A campaign page can be edited later. The words you stored are the words on the page at the time you opened it. A later page that rewrites them is a different document. Cite the later page on its own line if the sentence uses the rewrite, and say which page it replaced.
A government press release is the office's text. It can quote the candidate, and it can also paraphrase the candidate. Quote only the words inside the quotation the release prints, and say the release is the source. The rest of the release is the office's description. Treat it as that description.
A news article can contain a real quotation and a reporter's summary side by side. The quotation marks, the date, and the outlet are part of the line. The summary is a separate line, labeled as the outlet's words. An unsourced social post can start a question. It stays out of the statement section until a public page answers it.
Read the sentences around the quotation
A quotation can be verbatim and still mislead if the surrounding sentences reverse it. Read the sentence that contains the words. Then read the sentence before it and the sentence after it. Look for a condition, a question, a joke the speaker marked as a joke, or a line the speaker attributed to someone else. If the surrounding text limits the words, the file keeps the limit on the same line as the quotation.
OppIntell keeps a paired statement only when the quote is a verbatim slice of the stored record. A proposed quote that does not appear in the stored text is dropped. A paraphrase that is not the sentence in the record is dropped. If the sentences around the quotation reverse its meaning, the pair is dropped. The profile shows the quotation, and it shows the surrounding text when that text is different from the quotation. Both carry the source URL and the date the record was retrieved.
The comparison with a roll call is a different page: how to check a voting record against public statements. That check keeps the vote and the statement on separate lines, with both dates visible. A statement-versus-vote pair is kept only when the vote is final passage. A procedural vote is not turned into that comparison. How the roll call is read is How to research a candidate's voting record.
Two statements from different dates are also two documents. A position change is the pair, with both citations. If only one statement is in hand, the sentence stays a question. Contradiction flags point between two sourced records. A one-sided flag stays an open question. The memo check in front of either comparison is how to verify political claims before they reach a campaign memo.
What remains on the page after you close it
Citation validation asks whether the cited document still exists at the URL and still contains the cited language. A claim that fails stays out of a public post until the page is opened again or the sentence is replaced. That rule is on the methodology page. A campaign file can use the same habit without the software: date the reading, keep the URL, and pull the line when the page no longer shows the words.
An OppIntell profile shows a quotes section when quotes are stored for that person. Each quote keeps the words, the source name, the quote date when one is stored, and the evidence receipt for the source. The research book's public-statements section quotes words the person said and cites the page where those words appear. Profiles cover 24,000+ U.S. candidates. An empty statement section means no sourced statement is in the file. It does not mean the person has never spoken.
The record types around a statement are on opposition research sources. State hubs at candidate research by state and race hubs at candidate research by race are where you pick the person before you look for the words.
Related guides
- Voting record
- Campaign finance
- Public records
- Sections of a research book
- What a campaign receives
- Firms and research software
- Sourcing rules for a claim
- Profiles kept in one database
- How models describe a candidate
- Certified nominee names
Questions researchers ask
What is the official record of congressional remarks?
The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of Congress. GovInfo's help page for the Record, at https://www.govinfo.gov/help/crec, says the daily Record on GovInfo runs from volume 140 (1994) to the present, and that the current year is usually updated daily. Cite the issue and the page you opened.
How do I check a quote in context?
Read the sentence that contains the words, then the sentences before and after it. A quotation that is real can still sit inside a condition, a question, or a line the speaker attributed to someone else. The file keeps the words and the surrounding text. A paraphrase is labeled as someone else's description.
What counts as the candidate's own page?
An official campaign site and a government press release are source types a published briefing can cite. Save the URL and the date you read it. A later edit of that page is a different document. A news summary of the remarks is a different document from the sentence inside quotation marks.
Where is the comparison with a vote?
On How to Check a Candidate's Voting Record Against Public Statements. That page keeps the roll call and the quoted words on separate lines. This page stops once the statement itself is sourced.
Start from the public record
OppIntell builds source-cited candidate profiles from public records. If you want a file a second person can check, use the contact form on the opposition research page.