Under House rules, Members have the right to demand a vote on the Speaker's approval of the House Journal. The House Journal is the official record of all House proceedings, and is mandated by the Constitution. It is distinct from the Congressional Record. The Journal is kept by the Journal Clerk, a special employee of the House. It contains no verbatim debate, but instead is a rendition of all official actions taken by the House that day, akin to the minutes of a meeting.

There are three primary motivations behind demanding a vote on the House Journal, and none of them relate to approving its accuracy! They are: (1) to allow the House leadership to "take attendance." They may have a close vote coming up later in the day, and want some lead time to track down any Members who might be MIA; (2) to be dilatory and eat up time on the floor as a protest over something scheduled for the floor that day; (3) to force Members to come to the floor all at once -- perhaps so party Whips can hand out an important advisory, or to break up a controversial committee meeting going on elsewhere.

The vote on approval of the Journal usually takes place at the start of the legislative day. However, the Chair may use his standing authority to postpone the vote to a later time on that same day. Should the vote on approving the Speaker's approval of the Journal fail, the following motions could follow: (1) a motion to have the Journal read aloud in full; (2) a motion for direct House approval of the Journal; (3) a motion for the previous question; and (4) if the previous question is defeated, a motion to amend the Journal. Amending would be conducted under the one-hour rule, meaning one hour per amendment. There is so much opportunity in this process for delay and obstruction that it is a very unlikely scenario. Indeed, failure to approve the Journal would be a real sign that the majority leadership had lost control of its troops and of the chamber.

During the 106th Congress, the House has taken 37 roll-call votes on approval of the Journal [as of May 16, 2000]. During the 105th Congress (1997-1998), the House voted on approving the Journal on 40 separate occasions. And in the 104th Congress (1995-1996), the House voted on approving the Journal 35 times.