Congress.gov New, Tip and Top for March 2021, Part 1

Last month, Robert provided news of two enhancements to Congress.gov. The first involved new email alerts for committee profile pages. The second was the addition of 21 years of U.S. Statutes at Large to Congress.gov, which can be accessed through the text tab for bills that became public laws in this time period.

As part of our first release this month, we are providing a mechanism for users to provide feedback to their members for bills in the current Congress. This has been one of the most requested features for Congress.gov, and we are pleased to be able to debut it with this release.

This feature appears on the right hand side of the bill overview section, “Give Feedback on This Bill.”

Once you click “Contact Your Member,” another window will open allowing you to find your representatives and senators by entering your address:

Enhancements

Enhancement – Legislation – Give Feedback

• Use the link from any current Congress measure to find your representative and senators to give them your feedback on the bill or resolution. This will help to redirect such feedback that is now often being sent to the Congress.gov technical team and fulfill frequent public requests for such a feature.

Enhancement – Committee Meetings – Improved Access

• Access the complete collection of hearing transcripts from the Committee Schedule Select a Date calendar.
• Link to treaty documents from committee meeting overviews.

Enhancement – Committee Materials – Search

• Use new search fields, hearingBillNum: and committeePrintBillNum:, to find committee meetings and committee prints related to a specific bill.

Search Tip

The Bill Searches and Lists section on the Congress.gov homepage includes several helpful lists for researchers. These lists appear below the Search box and include bills organized by Sponsor, broken down by chamber, House and Senate. Once you click on House or Senate options, an alphabetical list of members appears with the number of bills they have sponsored or cosponsored as well as any amendments. You can also link to the member and the bills themselves.

Most-Viewed Bills

These are the most-viewed bills for the week of February 21, 2021.