Robert shared the recent Congress.gov enhancements in December, which included new Committee Schedule navigation and a compact view of cosponsors on legislation.
This release includes a new feature that I have been looking forward to. In the XML/HTML view of legislation, you have the option to directly share a link to a section of the legislation. To do this, hover over the section you would like to share. You will see a link icon.
If you move your mouse to the link, it will then say “Share This Section.” Click on that and it will then say “Link Copied.” You can then share the link, which will go directly to that part of the legislation.
Enhancements for January 2020
The enhancements for this release include:
Enhancement – Legislation
Deep linking is now supported in the XML/HTML instance of legislation text, allowing the user to link directly to text within legislation.
Enhancement – Congressional Record Index
The ability to search the text of the Congressional Record Index has been improved.
Search Tip
This week’s tip is how to Page Through Amendments of a Bill:
Congress.gov gives you the ability to page through all amendments for a specific bill. You can easily navigate through amendments.
- From the Amendments tab of a bill with more than one amendment (for example, HR2810), click on an amendment in the list to see the full amendment record.
- You can use the arrows to move to the next or previous amendment without needing to return to the list.
- The “Purpose” tab for each amendment will be open by default while scrolling through amendments; if desired, after clicking on the first amendment in the list, click another tab (e.g., Text, Actions or Cosponsors) to scroll through the amendments with the chosen tab open to view.
- Use the “Back to Amendments” link to return to the list on the amendments tab of the bill.
Prior to clicking the first amendment in the list, use the “Status of Amendments” filter to limit the amendments list to “House amendment agreed to” or to “Senate amendment submitted.”
Most-Viewed Bills
Rather than the weekly ten most viewed bills, I am sharing the Congress.gov top 19 in 2019. If you are interested in metrics from previous years see the 13 in 2013, 14 in 2014, 15 in 2015, 16 in 2016, 17 in 2017, and 18 in 2018. All of the items below are from the 116th Congress except numbers 15 and 16. I once added the latest step in the tracker for each item below as of the drafting of this post.
1. H.R.1044 – Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019 [Passed House]
2. S.386 – Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019 [Introduced]
3. H.Res.109 – Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. [Introduced]
4. H.R.1 – For the People Act of 2019 [Passed House]
5. H.R.8 – Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019 [Passed House]
6. H.R.5 – Equality Act [Passed House]
7. H.R.3289 – Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 [Passed House]
8. H.R.6 – American Dream and Promise Act of 2019 [Passed House]
9. H.R.2500 – National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 [Passed House]
10. H.Res.755 – Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors. [Agreed to in House]
11. S.1838 – Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 [Became Law]
12. H.R.420 – Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act [Introduced]
13. H.J.Res.31 – Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019 [Became Law]
14. S.66 – Assault Weapons Ban of 2019 [Introduced]
15. H.R.5428 – Stand with UK against Russia Violations Act [115th Congress, Introduced]
16. 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. [115th Congress, Became Law]
17. S.1790 – National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 [Became Law]
18. S.311 – Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act [Introduced]
19. H.J.Res.28 – Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019 [Became Law]
Thanks for using Congress.gov in 2019. We are excited for what we have planned in 2020. Are there enhancements you would like to see on Congress.gov? Leave a comment below or share your feedback.