ADMINISTRATIVE FILES: Memo Books and Staff Files, 1983-2000 and 2003-2013, bulk: 1983-1999

Summary: Memo Books and Staff Files contain administrative material that Lautenberg's staff members created in the course of their work. Memo books are collections of the memos created by individual staffers, organized by date. These materials include schedules, issue updates—individual aides were assigned separate issues to track for the Senator—and communications with people outside of the office. During Lautenberg's earlier terms (1983-2000) memos were collected into memo books and during his later terms (2003-2013) the memos were left unbound and included speech drafts.

Among the Staff Files are draft Speeches and Legislative Aides' Files. Some legislative aides kept their own files in addition to the memo books, and these have been maintained when the staff member was identifiable. Legislative Aides' Files contain memos, speech drafts, original research, schedules, and other materials used in day-to-day work. Each legislative aide was in charge of following a few issues—education, environment, and veteran's affairs to name a few—and keeping track of new legislation affecting those issues, following movements of the stakeholders, and keeping Lautenberg up to date on changes. The office did not retain lists of who was assigned to follow which topics/groups, and much of this information is likely replicated in the Memo Books and in the Subject Files series. Speech drafts were housed either by themselves or with memos, depending on how the office packaged them.