WASHINGTON — Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, first picked up the habit in grade school, scribbling notes in ink on 3-by-5-inch graph paper index cards as a mechanism to keep his handwriting small and his thoughts organized.
More than three decades later, seated in the back row of the Senate chamber during the third presidential impeachment trial in history, Mr. Sasse is still scrawling notes — this time on the hours of arguments over whether President Trump should be removed from office for committing high crimes and misdemeanors.
To the 100 senators who are serving as jurors and judges in Mr. Trump’s impeachment proceeding, the trial is both a complex and consequential constitutional case and a chance to witness history. So as they sit silently at their desks for hours on end, they are finding ways to document the trial in modern ways and age-old ones, working to keep track of evidence and arguments, to communicate with their constituents about the process and to preserve their memories for posterity.
Because of limitations on electronics during the trial, senators like Mr. Sasse have resorted to their own preferred methods of transcription and note-taking, arming themselves with felt-tip pens, legal pads, notepads purchased at Office Depot and at least one sparkly pink notebook. Those notes, coupled with the occasional constituent feedback, have helped provide the foundation for the questions senators are now asking of the seven House impeachment managers and Mr. Trump’s defense team.
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a veteran of the Clinton impeachment trial, carefully noted on her Senate legal pad the date, the name of the person speaking, their main points and any direct quotes that struck her as significant. In the margins, she wrote down possible inconsistencies, what she wanted to review and questions to potentially ask the two legal teams.
“I am just trying to capture the information, and in some cases, my reaction to it, in real time,” Ms. Collins wrote in an email. On Wednesday, she asked the first question of the trial — on behalf of herself and two Republican colleagues, Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah — about what they should do if they concluded that Mr. Trump had both political and policy objectives in mind in his actions toward Ukraine.
In the chamber, the taste for the mechanics of note-taking is widespread. Senator Cory Gardner, Republican of Colorado, brought a binder with color-coded tabs and background reading like the Senate Oath, the Constitution and the Federalist Papers. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, has carefully filled pages in a leather-bound book, sometimes while standing in the back of the room. And Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, can be seen keeping a record in a sparkly pink journal.
Sometimes all the documentation gives way doodling; Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, sketched out a visage of the Capitol building, underneath a few observations.
There was plenty of senatorial scribbling when the chamber weighed whether to remove President Bill Clinton 21 years ago, but in the first presidential impeachment of the 21st Century, senators also have access to a number of digital tools to capture their real-time reactions and reflections. Many are producing video clips filmed in their Capitol Hill offices that are quickly posted to social media.
Those tools have also provided a way for senators to give the public a glimpse of what otherwise would be private moments, such as a photo of the cellular device cubby where they must store their electronics to comply with rules against having them inside the chamber. Senator Angus King, the independent senator from Maine, snapped a picture of the cabinet, which one colleague had also used to store an apple, and posted it on Instagram.
Senator Doug Jones, Democrat of Alabama, said he wanted to figure out a way to show his constituents his impressions of the trial, so he decided to film a daily video — no longer than seven minutes — to circulate on social media.
“Hopefully people that I represent will see it, get the message, understand what I’m doing, how I’m approaching this, and we go from that,” Mr. Jones said in an interview.
In Tuesday’s installment, Mr. Jones, his sleeves rolled up and brandishing his legal note pad and blue felt-tip pen, read directly from his notes and discussed his takeaways from the arguments presented by Mr. Trump’s legal team.
“I do think it was important to get that immediate reaction or as close to an immediate reaction as possible,” he said.
In a similar vein, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, started a podcast — “Verdict with Ted Cruz” — an idea that had been kicked around before but came to fruition with the beginning of the trial, an aide said.
The podcast, hosted along with Michael Knowles, a conservative political commentator, has shot to the top of the iTunes charts, and offers Mr. Cruz an opportunity to expand upon his analysis of constitutional issues and the arguments with little interruption. Earlier this week, he asked subscribers to send suggestions for what to ask during the 16 hours allocated for Senate questions.
“If you turn on cable TV, you get people in five-, six-minute snippets,” Mr. Cruz said in the podcast’s first episode, which began recording around 2:40 a.m. last Wednesday after 12 hours of debate over the rules outlining the trial. “What I hope to do is have conversations really talking about issues that matter, and that’s what this podcast is all about.”
When not on the chamber floor, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, is maintaining his habit of carrying a camera wherever it’s allowed — whether by joining the news photographers capturing scenes of key trial figures maneuvering through the Capitol or stopping to take pictures of the photographers themselves, cordoned off behind red velvet ropes and stanchions.
“I take my camera just about everywhere,” Mr. Leahy wrote in a caption for a photo of Jay Sekulow, the president’s personal lawyer, speaking to reporters. The senator, who was born almost blind in one eye and found photography to be an outlet, now uses a digital Nikon camera, as opposed to the film cameras he used during Mr. Clinton’s impeachment trial.
Having filled roughly 130 pages of notes during that trial, he is again among those taking copious notes, recording his observations in part to show his wife and in part to reflect on later.
“Not what people are saying — we had a transcript for that,” Mr. Leahy said, recalling that his notes on the Clinton trial often focused on his own impressions from the chamber. “Why did so-and-so ask this question? What was going on with that?”
Apart from curious spouses, there is also a recognition among many senators that history will crave a firsthand account from those who were there about what it was like when the Senate decided, for only the third time, whether to remove a sitting president from office.
“I’m glad to have those notes that I’m taking just for personal reference and, you know, for the trial and questioning, but then also because it is historical,” said Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa. “As much as we hate being here and going through this process, it is a point in history that we will want to reference in the future.”
Michael D. Shear contributed reporting.
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