Paul Hays

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Paul Hays is one of two reading clerks of the United States House of Representatives, a face familiar to viewers of C-SPAN, the network which covers House proceedings. The reading clerk reads bills, motions, and other papers before the House and keeps track of changes to legislation made on the floor. During the vote for Speaker at the beginning of each Congress, or when the electronic voting system fails, the clerk calls the roll of members for voting viva voce. Hays joined the House in 1966 and became Republican reading clerk in 1988 at the nomination of Minority Leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois. Bald and bespectacled, he read the articles of impeachment laid against President Bill Clinton in 1998. Hays's aunt taught at the Capitol Page School for many years. Hays's Democratic counterpart is Mary Kevin Niland.