Annotation For more than 30 years, Congress and the Nation has been America's most trusted reference work on the decisions and debates in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. This concise and reliable reference encompasses the entire spectrum of American politics and is the perfect starting point for research on Congress. No library attempting to document American political affairs, no scholar tracing the chronological development of legislation, and no student of contemporary affairs should be without this impressive one-stop guide. Together with the other eight volumes in the series, Congress and the Nation IX offers an invaluable chronicle of the post-World War II era -- and the 10 presidencies from Truman through Clinton that have defined it. Congress and the Nation is the only congressional reference that allows readers to take as broad or as narrow a focus as they wish, and to look at the long history of issues. In compiling Congress and the Nation IX, the book editors at Congressional Quarterly have condensed major legislative, presidential, and political coverage during the 1993-1996 period into a single 1,296-page volume. Readers are given both an overview of the four-year period and detailed chronologies of congressional action in every major subject area. Congress and the Nation IX chronicles the legislative and public policy issues considered by Congress during President Clinton's first term. Written in the CQ tradition of thorough reporting and easy-to-understand language, this volume includes: -- A general survey of the politics of the period -- from the Republican "Contract with America", to the line-item veto, to the continuing debate about congressional distric lines.-- Key votes selected by CQ editors are noted in the articles and included in the appendix.-- Presidential speech texts: a generous selection of the most significant texts from President Clinton's first term.