National Archives and Records Administration

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and with increasing public access to those documents, which comprise the National Archives. NARA is officially responsible for maintaining and publishing the legally authentic and authoritative copies of acts of Congress, presidential proclamations and executive orders, and federal regulations.

The chief administrator of NARA is the Archivist of the United States, who not only maintains the official documentation of the passage of amendments to the U.S. Constitution by state legislatures, but has the authority to declare when the constitutional threshold for passage has been reached, and therefore when an act has become an amendment.

Read more about National Archives And Records Administration:  History, Regional Facilities, Social Media and Web 2.0, Archivist of The United States, Popular Culture

Famous quotes containing the words national and/or records:

    Reporters for tabloid newspapers beat a path to the park entrance each summer when the national convention of nudists is held, but the cult’s requirement that visitors disrobe is an obstacle to complete coverage of nudist news. Local residents interested in the nudist movement but as yet unwilling to affiliate make observations from rowboats in Great Egg Harbor River.
    —For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    What a wonderful faculty is memory!—the most mysterious and inexplicable in the great riddle of life; that plastic tablet on which the Almighty registers with unerring fidelity the records of being, making it the depository of all our words, thoughts and deeds—this faithful witness against us for good or evil.
    Susanna Moodie (1803–1885)