We want to hear from you! Your feedback is critical to the development of new features on Congress.gov. We hope you will join us for the Congress.gov Virtual Public Forum today at 10 a.m. EDT. Also, please take a moment to fill out this feedback form to let us know how we can better meet your legislative information needs.
In August, we added the Bound Congressional Record for 1983-1994 to Congress.gov. This month we are excited to begin adding committee hearing transcripts to Congress.gov. The first batch includes transcripts for hearings from the 115th and 116th Congresses. The Senate Communications search form now displays historical committee names in the selection list when previous Congresses are selected. In the footer, you will find a link to our revamped Ask A Librarian service, where you can seek assistance with your Congress.gov research and legal reference questions. We have also added a link to the Congressional Web Archive in the footer, an archive that consists of congressional websites dating back to the 107th Congress (2001). You can now use ReadSpeaker to listen to the text of a committee report, and you can also download the audio file of that report. We have also made it easier to link to Congressional Budget Office reports of cost estimates and some committee profile pages now contain historical notes about that committee. You can read the full list of enhancements below.

Enhancements
New – Committee Meetings – Hearing Transcripts
- Committee meetings include full text of hearing transcripts when available.
- Transcripts are available initially for hearings from the 115th and 116th Congresses. Transcripts for older Congresses will be added over time.
- Search results indicate when a committee meeting includes a hearing transcript.
Enhancement – Senate Communications – Search Form
- Senate Communications search form displays historical committee names in the selection list when previous Congresses are selected.
Enhancement – Congress.gov – Footer Links
- Ask a Law Librarian in the footer and on the Contact Us page links to a revamped help service.
- Congressional Web Archive, a new link under Resources, takes you to archived member and committee websites from the 107th Congress forward.
Enhancement – Committee Reports – ReadSpeaker
- Download an audio file to listen to the text of a committee report at your convenience.
Enhancement – CBO Cost Estimates – Improved Display
- Style improvements make it easier to link to each Congressional Budget Office cost estimate.
Enhancement – Committee Profiles – Historical Notes
- Notes may be displayed on a committee profile to provide information about the committee’s history.
Enhancement – Account Management
- We’d hate to see you go, but if you must you can easily close your account from your account settings page.
Search Tip
Constitution Day is coming up on September 17th! We hope you can join us for our Constitution Day event, where Michael J. Murphy, a historical publications specialist from the Office of the Historian for the U.S. House of Representatives, will discuss the lives of the first African American congressmen. Constitution Day is also a great time to explore the Constitution Annotated. This site, created by the Congressional Research Service, provides articles on U.S. constitutional provisions and the leading U.S. Supreme Court decisions that interpret them.
Most-Viewed Bills
These are the most-viewed bills for the week of August 30th, 2020. All of these bills are from the 116th Congress.
1. | S.311 | Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act |
2. | H.R.5717 | Gun Violence Prevention and Community Safety Act of 2020 |
3. | H.R.6800 | The Heroes Act |
4. | H.R.5383 | New Way Forward Act |
5. | H.R.748 | CARES Act |
6. | H.R.6666 | COVID-19 Testing, Reaching, And Contacting Everyone (TRACE) Act |
7. | H.R.8015 | Delivering for America Act |
8. | H.R.7120 | George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020 |
9. | S.3548 | CARES Act |
10. | H.R.8089 | Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act |
Comments
This is a great addition. One suggestion — allow a filter for search results with a transcript.