Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top for June 2018

Back in May, Robert provided an update on the Congress.gov enhancements including “the ability to browse legislation using subject terms on ‘all information’ bill detail pages.”

One of the new features in the Congress.gov enhancements released today is that the date of the “Previous Meeting” on the homepage will now be linked to a list of items that were on the House or Senate floor that day.

Another addition to Congress.gov with this release is errata. A published errata is a correction to a committee report.  If there is an errata for the report you are looking at there will be an additional line with a link to it below the committee in the overview box.

One thing you might see when opening an errata is a note like this:

“NOTICE: In lieu of a star print, errata are printed to indicate corrections to the original report.”

Curious as to what a star print is? The Congress.gov glossary defines it as:

Star prints are corrected editions of Congressional publications. Star prints take precedence over the original print of a report or document. Corrected editions may be identifiable by one or more stars, and sometimes the words ‘star print’, at the lower left-hand corner of official paper and PDF title pages or covers. Web-friendly bill texts display stars in the top, left margin (e.g., Star print of 114SRes22).

With each release we provide a detailed list of all of the updates at Congress.gov Enhancements:

New Enhancements for June 2018

Enhancement – Legislation Advanced Search Form – Committee Activity Feature

• From the Committees section of the Legislation Advanced Search form, users can select a series of checkboxes to apply one or several committee-related activities to their search criteria.
• Selections are Any, Referred To, Hearings By, Markup By, Reported By, Reported Original Measure, and Discharged From. The form defaults to Any.
• Users can limit their search to activity related to one or multiple committees using the Choose House Committees or Choose Senate Committees buttons below the checkboxes.
• Example: In the Advanced Search form, select the 114th Congress. Under Committees select “Hearings by” and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The search returns measures for which Senate Energy and Natural Resources held hearings.

Enhancement – “On the Floor” Reports Linked From Homepage

• Under Current Legislative Activities on the homepage, Previous Meeting dates for the House and Senate link to reports of floor activity related to bills and resolutions, amendments, nominations, and treaties.
• Previous Meeting links to a page indicating “There is no floor activity data to show for this day” if a chamber was not in session.
• Example: On May 17, 2018, the Previous Meeting link for the Senate would have linked to this On the Floor report of activity for May 16, displaying the bills, resolutions and nominations acted upon on that day.

Enhancement – Streamlined Homepage Search Forms

• In each of the homepage search forms, About and Browse links are located on the bottom left of the form, rather than under the Words and Phrases search bar.
• Date ranges searched are now found within Congress multi-select pick lists as part of the All Congresses option.

Search Tip

Adrienne continues to share great search tips, the most recent of which shows up on the Congress.gov homepage.  She recently shared the following tip:

Track FY2019 appropriations on Congress.gov. Sign up to receive an email alert when a new bill or resolution is added to the Congress.gov appropriations tables.

Top 10

Below are the Most-Viewed Bills for May 27, 2018.  All are from the 115th Congress.

Please share any feedback that you have on Congress.gov or leave a comment below.