congressgov_bill_lookup
Congress.gov Bill Lookup
Browse and retrieve U.S. legislative bill data from Congress.gov. Discover bills by filtering on congress, bill type, and date range — there is no keyword search. Use 'list' to browse (requires congress, defaults to most-recently-updated first), 'get' for full bill detail (sponsor, policy area, CBO estimates, law info), or drill into a specific bill with 'actions', 'amendments', 'cosponsors', 'committees', 'subjects', 'summaries', 'text', 'titles', or 'related' (each requires congress + billType + billNumber). 'text' lists the published versions and their format URLs; 'content' then reads one version's actual text, a bounded character window at a time. 'summaries' takes an optional versionCode selector and returns each row's text a bounded character window at a time — a row past the window carries textTotalCharacters/textTruncated/textNextOffset, and characterOffset reads on from there. An 'actions' row that records a roll call vote carries rollVote — the chamber, congress, session, and voteNumber congressgov_roll_votes takes to return that vote and each member's position. An 'amendments' row's type and number, with congress, are the amendmentType and amendmentNumber congressgov_amendment_lookup takes to return that amendment's sponsor, actions, cosponsors, and text.
ParameterslimitorderformatoffsetbillTypecongressrequiredoperationrequiredbillNumbertoDateTimeversionCodefromDateTimecharacterLimit+2 more
congressgov_amendment_lookup
Congress.gov Amendment Lookup
Browse and retrieve U.S. congressional amendments from Congress.gov — House (hamdt), Senate (samdt), and Senate unprinted (suamdt, 97th and 98th Congresses only). An amendment is addressed by congress + amendmentType + amendmentNumber, the identifiers other tools return: congressgov_bill_lookup 'amendments' rows (type and number), House votes from congressgov_roll_votes (amendmentType and amendmentNumber), and amendment rows from congressgov_member_lookup 'sponsored'/'cosponsored' (amendmentNumber, with the type in the row's url); either letter case is accepted. Use 'list' to browse one congress, optionally one amendmentType (newest update first; fromDateTime/toDateTime filter on update date), 'get' for the record (sponsor, purpose, description, the bill or amendment it amends, latest action), or drill in with 'actions', 'cosponsors', 'amendments' (amendments to this amendment), or 'text'. 'text' lists the published text versions — the Congressional Record pages that print the amendment, often alongside the surrounding floor proceedings — and 'content' reads one version's HTML as plain text, a bounded character window at a time. On that page a Senate amendment is printed under 'SA {number}' or 'Amendment No. {number}'; a House amendment is not printed under its HAMDT number — find it at the Record page its 'actions' rows cite ('text: CR H3582-3583' is the '[[Page H3582]]' marker) or under 'Amendment No. N Offered by', where N is the number the description from 'get' gives it ('An amendment numbered 64 printed in House Report 118-142'). An 'actions' row that records a roll call vote carries rollVote — the chamber, congress, session, and voteNumber congressgov_roll_votes takes to return that vote and each member's position.
ParameterslimitorderoffsetcongressrequiredoperationrequiredtoDateTimefromDateTimeamendmentTypecharacterLimitamendmentNumbercharacterOffsettextVersionIndex
congressgov_enacted_laws
Congress.gov Enacted Laws
Browse enacted public and private laws from Congress.gov by congress and law type ('pub' for public laws, 'priv' for private). 'list' filters by enactment status and law type — the discovery path 'bill_lookup' does not offer. 'get' returns the origin bill record (sponsor, actions, summaries, text), with the public/private law citation on the bill's 'laws' array (e.g. {"number":"118-2","type":"Public Law"}).
ParameterslimitoffsetlawTypecongressrequiredlawNumberoperationrequired
congressgov_member_lookup
Congress.gov Member Lookup
Discover congressional members and their legislative activity. No name search. For 'list', filter by stateCode (optionally with district), by congress, or by both together (e.g., 118th Congress + CA, or CA district 12 in the 118th). Add currentMember=true to restrict to currently serving members. Once you have a bioguideId, use 'get' for full profile or 'sponsored'/'cosponsored' for their legislative portfolio. A 'sponsored'/'cosponsored' row that is an amendment carries amendmentNumber, with its amendment type in the row's url (/amendment/{congress}/{type}/{number}); pass congress, amendmentType, and amendmentNumber to congressgov_amendment_lookup for its sponsor, actions, and text.
ParameterslimitoffsetcongressdistrictoperationrequiredstateCodebioguideIdcurrentMember
congressgov_committee_lookup
Congress.gov Committee Lookup
Browse congressional committees and their legislation, reports, and nominations. Committee codes follow the pattern chamber-prefix (h/s/j) + abbreviation + 2-digit number — use 'list' (with optional 'filter' for name→code resolution) to discover codes, then 'get' or drill into 'bills', 'reports', or 'nominations' ('nominations' is Senate-only). 'get' and sub-resources only need committeeCode (chamber is inferred from the prefix, or read from the committee roster when the prefix's chamber does not hold the code); pass chamber explicitly to override. The 'bills' sub-resource defaults to 'recent' order (newest update-date first); pass order='oldest' for ascending update-date order. Upstream omits bill titles from the 'bills' sub-resource — rows carry only {congress, billType, billNumber, actionDate, relationshipType, url}; chain 'congressgov_bill_lookup get' per row to retrieve titles and policy area.
ParameterslimitorderfilteroffsetchambercongressoperationrequiredcommitteeCode
congressgov_roll_votes
Congress.gov Roll Votes
Retrieve U.S. congressional roll call votes and individual member voting positions for either chamber. Set 'chamber' to 'house' (default, from the Congress.gov API — Congress.gov publishes House roll call votes from the 115th Congress (2017) onward) or 'senate' (from the Senate's official LIS feed — the Senate publishes roll call votes from the 101st Congress (1989) onward). When the LIS feed can't be read (senate.gov refuses automated requests), Senate calls are answered from Voteview's published vote files instead, and 'source' names Voteview and its latest vote; a later vote is not found until Voteview adds it. Use 'list' to find votes by congress and session (newest first by default), 'get' for vote details (question, result, tallies, party breakdown, associated bill/nomination/amendment), or 'members' for how each member voted. 'members' narrows the roster by bioguideId (House only), stateCode, and party before paging, so one member's or one delegation's position takes one call. A bill action that records a roll call carries rollVote in congressgov_bill_lookup 'actions' — pass its chamber, congress, session, and voteNumber here. A House vote on an amendment carries amendmentType and amendmentNumber; pass them, with congress, to congressgov_amendment_lookup for the amendment's sponsor, actions, cosponsors, and text.
ParameterslimitorderpartyoffsetchambersessionrequiredcongressrequiredoperationrequiredstateCodebioguideIdvoteNumber
congressgov_senate_nominations
Congress.gov Senate Nominations
Browse presidential nominations to federal positions and track the Senate confirmation process. Use 'list' to browse, 'get' for nomination detail, 'actions'/'committees'/'hearings' for confirmation pipeline data, or 'nominees' to retrieve individual appointees in a multi-nominee batch. Nominations use 'PN' (Presidential Nomination) numbering. Most nominations carry confirmation activity on the parent (e.g., PN1000); multi-part parents (e.g., PN851) carry no activity of their own — their actions, committees, hearings, and nominees live on partitioned children (PN851-1, PN851-2, …). 'get' on a parent that has no `nominees` array signals the partitioned form is needed for everything below it. nominationNumber takes either form bare or as its citation (1000 or PN1000, 730-2 or PN730-2). 'list' runs newest update first and takes fromDateTime/toDateTime, which filter on the date Congress.gov last updated a nomination record — not its received date or latest action date. An action that cites its own Senate record vote — an `actions` row, or `latestAction` on `list` and `get` — carries `rollVote`, the congressgov_roll_votes arguments for that vote.
ParameterslimitoffsetordinalcongressrequiredoperationrequiredtoDateTimefromDateTimenominationNumber
congressgov_bill_summaries
Congress.gov Bill Summaries
Browse recent CRS (Congressional Research Service) bill summaries — plain-language summaries of bills at each legislative stage, useful for answering "what's happening in Congress?". The fromDateTime/toDateTime filters apply to the summary's update time, not the bill's action date, so results include recently rewritten summaries of older bills. Defaults to summaries updated in the last 7 days. Each item shows both the bill's action date and the summary update date. A page returns limit rows, and a summary longer than the per-row window arrives as an exact character window carrying textTotalCharacters/textTruncated/textNextOffset; pagination.nextOffset continues the page and a row's textNextOffset continues its text. For summaries of one specific bill — and to read a windowed summary to the end — use congressgov_bill_lookup with operation='summaries' instead.
ParameterslimitoffsetbillTypecongresstoDateTimefromDateTime
congressgov_crs_reports
Congress.gov CRS Reports
Browse, retrieve, and read CRS (Congressional Research Service) reports — nonpartisan policy analyses by subject-matter experts at the Library of Congress, covering policy areas, legislative proposals, and legal questions. Report IDs are letters then digits (R40097, RL33612, IF12345) or, for older reports, two digit groups joined by a hyphen (96-548). Use 'list' to browse available reports, newest update first, 'get' for full detail (authors, topics, summary, download formats), or 'content' to read the report itself — its HTML version as plain text, a bounded character window at a time; feed nextOffset back as characterOffset to read on. The oldest reports publish only a PDF, which 'content' cannot read; the error names its URL. 'list' takes fromDateTime/toDateTime, which filter on the date Congress.gov last updated a report — not its publication date — so a window finds reports added or revised in it.
ParameterslimitoffsetoperationrequiredtoDateTimefromDateTimereportNumbercharacterLimitcharacterOffset
congressgov_committee_reports
Congress.gov Committee Reports
Browse and retrieve committee reports from Congress.gov — reports accompany legislation reported out of committee and explain the bill's purpose, committee amendments, dissenting views, and the committee vote. Report types are 'hrpt' (House), 'srpt' (Senate), and 'erpt' (Executive). 'list' is not ordered by date; it takes fromDateTime/toDateTime, which filter on the date Congress.gov last updated a report record, and conference, which selects conference reports — list rows carry no conference field. 'text' lists the published format URLs; 'content' then reads the report's actual text, a bounded character window at a time. A multi-part report (Part 2, Book 3) is filed as one record per part under one report number: 'get', 'text', and 'content' serve Part 1 unless part names another, and list every part number in parts.
ParameterspartlimitformatoffsetcongressrequiredoperationrequiredconferencereportTypetoDateTimefromDateTimereportNumbercharacterLimit+1 more
congressgov_daily_record
Congress.gov Daily Record
Browse the daily Congressional Record — floor speeches, debates, and legislative text published each day Congress is in session. Navigation is hierarchical: volumes (via 'list') → issues (via 'issues') → articles (via 'articles'). Use 'list' to find recent volumes, 'issues' to see what's in a volume, and 'articles' to access individual speeches and debate sections. 'articles' lists each article and its format URLs; 'content' then reads one article's actual text, a bounded character window at a time.
ParameterslimitformatoffsetoperationrequiredissueNumberarticleIndexvolumeNumbercharacterLimitcharacterOffset
congressgov_search_bills
Congress.gov Bill Search
Keyword-search U.S. bills by title and CRS summary text — the discovery path the Congress.gov API itself lacks (it has no keyword search). Backed by a local full-text index over a bounded window of congresses, which every response names in mirroredCongresses; title and summary are indexed, but policy area and full bill text are not. Returns BM25-ranked matches, each with the bill's derived id (congress/billType/billNumber) for follow-up congressgov_bill_lookup calls and a truncated summary preview. Narrow with the optional congress, billType, and originChamber filters; a congress outside mirroredCongresses returns an empty result with a notice, not a no-match. Searches the local mirror, not the live API — if the mirror has not finished its initial build it returns an empty result with a notice, not an error.
ParameterslimitqueryrequiredoffsetbillTypecongressoriginChamber
