Legislature. House of Representatives

Standing committee audio recordings, 1994-

View history of records' creator.

Schedule Description

These are the audio recordings of the House standing committee meetings. The recordings are used to generate the written committee minutes. Meetings are opened and adjourned according to procedure.

Scope and Content

These are the audio recordings of the House standing committee meetings. Their primary use is to generate the written committee minutes. However, since the written minutes do not contain a verbatim transcript of the meetings, the audio recordings are now retained permanently and are often of great value in researching the history of legislation.

Standing committees are an important part of the process of lawmaking during a general session of the Legislature. By law, a proposed bill is read three times: first by title as an introduction, a second time following a report from a relevant standing committee, and finally as a review for the full House of Representatives prior to a vote. After the first reading, a bill is reviewed by the House's Rules Committee for proper form and fiscal impact. The committee then recommends a standing committee to discuss the bill. The subsequent meetings are an opportunity to hear comment and testimony from the public. The standing committee may then amend, hold, table, substitute, or make a favorable recommendation on the bill (Utah State Government: A Citizen's Guide, 2005).

Notes

This series was not originally scheduled as permanent, thus the Utah State Archives does not have holdings prior to 1994. In addition, the most recent years not included in the container list below should be accessed directly from the House of Representatives.

This series was processed by Gina Strack in December 2007. All audio cassette cases were replaced and uniform inserts were added with the committee name and date. Tapes were numbered sequentially based on the arrangement. Original labels on the tapes themselves remain; some tapes did not have any label content, in such cases any information from the discarded insert was transferred to the new insert. A number of audio recordings have additional notes written on the label such as House and Senate Bill numbers presumably discussed on that tape.

Gina Strack processed recordings for 2003 to 2011 in July 2023 and revised the series inventory in February 2024.

Research guides explaining the relationship between various legislative bills and how to use them are available both online and in the Research Center. To determine the standing committee responsible for a particular bill, researchers may consult the working bill file where, especially in earlier years, the "bill back" usually indicates the committee assigned. The House Journal may also provide information about the dates of various readings and reports from the standing committees.

Boxes 1 to 19 contain audio cassette tapes and Boxes 20 and 21 contain compact discs.