Chiles meeting with Florida Sheriffs and Police Chiefs on crack cocaine, 1986 July 23

"Series 8: Audiovisual materials, 1971-1988" consists of audiovisual recordings, both moving image and sound, of events associated with the Senate career of Lawton Chiles. (Campaign audiovisual can be found in Series 5.)

The series is derived from three sources. The first consisted of numbered videotapes identified by staffer Dennis Beal before being shipped to the University of Florida. The second source consisted of audiovisual materials, video and audio, that were unidentified or partially identified when they were transferred. The third source consisted of distribution copies and masters of Senator Chiles's monthly television show entitled The Lawton Chiles Update. (An incomplete set of Update tapes was also found in the Beal videotapes.) Indexes and scripts for the Update shows can be found in Series 4. The shows highlighted issues on Senator Chiles's agenda during the last two years of his tenure in the Senate, including drug abuse, infant mortality, and government waste. As the ranking member and then chair of the Committee on the Budget, Chiles used the show to explain the budget process to his constituents.

The series is divided into moving image (mostly video) recordings, audio recordings, and The Lawton Chiles Update programs.