It seems like just yesterday that Robert was sharing the Congress.gov updates for February, which included doubling the downloads of search results from 500 to 1,000 items.
New Enhancements for March 2018
One item we are working on is how to improve our Congress.gov alerts and saved searches. In this release we take a step forward by more accurately labeling your saved searches from the search form and “Advanced Search.” Now, rather than just “Saved Search” for those searches, you will see the specific search form you used, such as “Saved Legislation Search,” “Saved Nominations Search,” and “Saved House Communications Search.”
A list of all of the updates are available from Congress.gov Enhancements:
Enhancement – Saved Search Alert display
- On Congress.gov account Alert pages, searches with alerts that were saved from a homepage search form or advanced search form now appear with labels indicating which data set was used to create the search.
- Example – a search saved from the House Communications search form displays a red label that reads “Saved House Communications Search” rather than “Saved Search.”
Enhancement – Legislation Text form Boolean search functionality
- The Legislation Text search form defaults to the option to “Allow quotes and Boolean operators” when searching words and phrases, allowing users to perform more specific searches than previously.
- Example – search across Congresses for Enrolled versions of texts containing “vote registration”~5 or “vote rights”~5 to find texts containing the words in either phrase within five words of each other.
Enhancement – Related Bills navigation
- Selecting a link to a related bill opens the bill in a new tab and displays the most recent Summary.
- Example – under H.R.1’s Related Bills tab, selecting H.R. 1012 opens a new tab displaying the Overview and Summary for H.R. 1012.
Enhancement – “Remember Me” user account functionality
- When a user checks the “Remember Me” box when signing into their Congress.gov account, their login information is saved in the form for six months, facilitating quick account access.
This release additionally includes backend work to improve access to committee information as part of the ongoing Committee Authority Project.
Search Tip
Adrienne recently shared the following tip, Search for Legislation with Actions on a Date or Date Range:
On Congress.gov, use the Legislation Advanced Search form to find measures with actions on a specific date or within a date range. In the form, use the Search in Actions/Status Text box in combination with the date picker to search actions by date. Note that the date picker relates only to terms entered in the text box and not to the Quick List or Full List of actions.
For example, try this search for measures with actions including the words “accompany” and “instructions” in the past 30 days. To see the search terms in the form, select Edit Search in the upper right corner of the results page.
Top 10
The Most-Viewed Bills for March 4, 2018 all are from the 115th Congress.
| 1. | H.R.5087 | Assault Weapons Ban of 2018 |
| 2. | H.R.1 | An Act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to titles II and V of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018. |
| 3. | H.R.38 | Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017 |
| 4. | H.R.1865 | Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 |
| 5. | S.2095 | Assault Weapons Ban of 2017 |
| 6. | H.R.620 | ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017 |
| 7. | H.R.5077 | Assault Weapons Ban of 2018 |
| 8. | H.R.1892 | Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 |
| 9. | H.R.392 | Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2017 |
| 10. | S.2155 | Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act |
As always, we love to hear from you. Please be sure to submit feedback or leave a comment below about Congress.gov.