Where can I find the Senate roll‑call vote records (yeas and nays) for the 99th Congress (1985–1986)?

1. Where the official roll‑call tallies live: Congress.gov bill action pages

Every recorded “Yea‑Nay” on specific bills and amendments during the 99th Congress (1985–1986) is published on Congress.gov in the “Actions” or roll‑call sections for each bill; examples include the record votes for major measures such as S.1200 (Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986), which lists individual Record Vote numbers and tallies (e.g., Record Vote No: 357, 63‑24) and many intermediate amendment votes ^[5], and similar detailed roll‑call entries appear on pages for H.R.3838 (Tax Reform Act) and other landmark measures ^{[6] [7]}.

2. The U.S. Senate’s own archives: votes and cloture logs

The Senate’s official votes pages publish roll‑call results compiled by the Senate Legislative Information System under the Secretary of the Senate and include both the complete roll‑call vote records for sessions and a dedicated cloture motions list (the 99th Congress saw 41 cloture motions filed) that links tallies to roll call numbers and dates ^{[2] [8]}.

3. Data for researchers and bulk download: Voteview and machine datasets

For analysts seeking bulk or machine‑readable roll‑call matrices and member‑level vote files, Voteview provides downloadable data sets organized by Congress (including the 99th) that are commonly used for roll‑call analysis, DW‑NOMINATE scaling and other quantitative work ^[3].

4. Context and narrative: Congressional Record and browse tools

The Congressional Record reproduces debates, amendments and the formal announcement of roll calls and is indexed by date for the 99th Congress on Congress.gov, making it the primary source for the verbatim context surrounding any recorded vote ^[4]. Congress.gov also offers a “Browse 99th Congress” hub to jump to bills, laws and committee reports and link to associated roll‑call actions ^[9].

5. Practical route to find a specific vote (methodology)

Locate a roll‑call either by bill number via Congress.gov’s bill page “Actions” tab (which lists each Record Vote No. and the Yea‑Nay tally, as seen on S.1965 and others) or by date on the Senate votes/cloture archive to match a Roll Call Vote number to its detailed result; both systems cross‑reference Record Vote numbers for verification ^{[7] [5] [8]}.

6. Why cross‑checking matters and where to watch for gaps

Congress.gov entries for bills provide succinct vote tallies and Record Vote numbers but researchers should cross‑check with the Senate’s official vote pages and the Congressional Record when seeking individual Senator‑level yea/nay lists or the verbatim proceeding, because the Office of the Senate and Library of Congress produce complementary outputs and occasional metadata differences can occur between bill action summaries and the full roll‑call transcript ^{[1] [2] [4]}.

7. Secondary guides and institutional context

Academic and library guides (for example, Bowdoin’s research guide on floor votes) point researchers to these same primary sources and explain how machine‑recorded House versus Senate procedures differ (House electronic tally vs Senate Legislative Information System), which matters for provenance when assembling long‑range roll‑call datasets ^{[10] [1]}. Historical profiles of the 99th Congress further situate major roll calls within the partisan control and legislative priorities of the period ^{[11] [12]}.

8. Limitations in the sources and hidden agendas to watch

Public repositories are authoritative for counts and Record Vote numbers but do not interpret motive; users should note that institutional summaries emphasize procedural completeness (the Senate’s vote compilation procedures) and that third‑party aggregators may reshape data for analytics—Voteview for ideological scaling, Congress.gov for legal status—so the researcher’s choice of source reflects an implicit agenda toward legal accuracy versus analytic usability ^{[2] [3] [1]}.