Congress.gov Scraper

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Extract US legislative data from Congress.gov — the official source for bills, members, and committees maintained by the Library of Congress. This actor replaces GovTrack (API discontinued summer 2026) and uses the free official Congress.gov API.

What You Get

• Bills — title, sponsor, party, state, policy area, subjects, latest action, introduced date, cosponsor count, and direct bill URL
• Members — bioguide ID, name, party, state, district, chamber, legislation counts, and photo URL
• Committees — name, chamber, type, subcommittee count, and Congress.gov URL
• Bill details — full structured data for any specific bill by congress number, type, and bill number

Data Source

All data is sourced from the official Congress.gov API (api.congress.gov) maintained by the Library of Congress. The API is free to use without registration (30 requests/hour with the default DEMO_KEY). Register at api.congress.gov for 5,000 requests/hour.

Input

Modes

searchBills — Search and list recent bills

Returns a paginated list of bills from Congress.gov, sorted by most recently updated.

{
"mode":"searchBills",
"congress":119,
"billType":"HR",
"maxItems":20
}

billDetails — Get full details for a specific bill

Returns complete metadata for one bill including sponsor, subjects, action history counts.

{
"mode":"billDetails",
"congress":119,
"billType":"HR",
"billNumber":1
}

members — List congressional members

Returns members with party, state, district, and legislation activity counts.

{
"mode":"members",
"chamber":"senate",
"party":"D",
"currentMember":true,
"maxItems":50
}

committees — List committees

Returns standing, select, and joint committees with chamber and type.

{
"mode":"committees",
"chamber":"house",
"maxItems":30
}

Output Fields

Bills

Members

Committees

Example Output Record (Bill)

{
"congress":119,
"billType":"HR",
"billNumber":1,
"title":"American Innovation and Jobs Act",
"originChamber":"House",
"introducedDate":"2025-01-06",
"sponsor":"Charles Schumer",
"sponsorParty":"D",
"sponsorState":"NY",
"policyArea":"Science, Technology, Communications",
"latestAction":"Referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.",
"latestActionDate":"2025-01-10",
"cosponsorCount":12,
"actionCount":5,
"subjects":["Research and Development","Tax Credits"],
"billUrl":"https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/hr/1",
"recordType":"bill",
"scrapedAt":"2025-05-25T10:30:00+00:00"
}

Use Cases

• Legislative research — Track bills by topic, sponsor, or status across Congress sessions
• Civic tech — Build apps that show what your representatives have been working on
• Journalism — Monitor bill activity, cosponsor patterns, and committee assignments
• Policy analysis — Study legislative trends across multiple Congress sessions
• Academic research — Analyze voting patterns, party alignment, and policy areas
• Compliance & lobbying — Monitor relevant legislation in your industry

Rate Limits

The default DEMO_KEY is rate-limited to 30 requests per hour. For large-scale data collection:

1. Register a free API key at api.congress.gov
2. Enter your key in the apiKey field
3. Enjoy 5,000 requests per hour

The actor automatically adds delays between requests when using DEMO_KEY to stay within limits.

FAQ

Q: How current is the data? Congress.gov is the official US government source — data is updated within hours of official actions.

Q: What Congress numbers are available? Historical data goes back many congresses. The current is 119 (2025–2026); 118 was 2023–2024.

Q: What are the bill type codes?

• HR — House Resolution (a bill originating in the House)
• S — Senate Bill
• HJRES — House Joint Resolution
• SJRES — Senate Joint Resolution
• HCONRES / SCONRES — Concurrent Resolutions
• HRES / SRES — Simple Resolutions

Q: Can I search for bills by keyword? Yes — use the query field with mode=searchBills to filter results by title keyword.

Q: Is a paid API key required? No. The DEMO_KEY works out of the box with lower rate limits. Register at api.congress.gov for higher limits.