'Taking' Congress is an Exacting Task
Speed, Resourcefulness, and a High Spirit of Service Characterize the Twelve Men Who Report Debates for the Official Record – Some Lively Stenographic Experiences Are Told
In 1926, New York Times Magazine published an article about congressional stenographers on Capitol Hill. In 2026, perhaps surprisingly, the profession still exists.
The journalist Carson C. Hathaway wrote a century ago:
There are twelve reporters: six for the Senate, six for the House. In the House, the reporters are appointed by the Speaker. They may be removed by him for cause, a contingency that has never occurred.
Well, it has since then. In 2013, the stenographer Dianne Reidy seized the House floor’s microphone before anyone realized what was happening or could stop her. She unleashed an unhinged rant about God before security escorted her away, around 30 seconds later. She was later fired for the incident.
Hold on. Even in this increasingly-technological world, Congress still employed stenographers in 2013? Do they still now in 2026?
Apparently, yes. Indeed, here’s a current job posting for a congressional stenographer.
A few years ago, Justin Furst at eCourt Reporters News answered the question in an article with the headline “Why are Stenographers Still on the Senate Floor?” He provided this example:
Voice-to-text translation can be misrepresented from the spoken word to the printed word. Imagine the spoken words “below-knee pain” and having voice-to-text translate those words to “baloney pain.”
Somebody posted in 2020 on the subreddit r/Ask_Politics to inquire why the Senate still has stenographers. A user, who claimed to have served as a Senate page back in high school, answered while providing this behind-the-scenes gossip:
The senator that was their favorite to type for was Susan Collins, because of her incredibly slow speaking voice. They hated doing Sherrod Brown, because of his complete lack of sentence construction while speaking or mastery of the English language generally.
The 1926 NYT Mag article also noted that a congressional stenographer’s salary back then was $6,000 per year. Adjusted for inflation, that would be around $109,000 today.
But that aforementioned congressional stenographer job posting I linked to earlier lists the salary as $157,291 per year. So over time, the salary has gone up relative to inflation.
Interesting – if anything, given how good the technology has gotten, I would have guessed the salary would have either remained about level or otherwise gone down.
‘Taking’ Congress is an Exacting Task: Speed, Resourcefulness, and a High Spirit of Service Characterize the Twelve Men Who Report Debates for the Official Record – Some Lively Stenographic Experiences Are Told
Published: Sunday, February 21, 1926