Earlier this month, Andrew took a look back at all of the great new features that were added to Congress.gov in 2022. In this release, we have added member remarks in the Congressional Record as a filter on member profile pages. If you access a member’s profile page, you can perform a search and then use the filter to view results for your search that contain the member’s remarks that were published in the Congressional Record.
In addition, we have enhanced the share/save tool that is located at the top of the screen to support shorter URLs for your search results so that the URL is easier to share. Previously, this feature was only available on the Advanced Legislation Search Form.
You can now use a fielded search to search for bills that have Congressional Budget Office cost estimates. The field is as follows: hasCBOCostEstimate:”Y”
For example, the following search will return all bills in the 105th Congress that have a Congressional Budget Office cost estimate: (congressId:105) AND hasCBOCostEstimate:”Y”
Finally, the text to speech accessibility tool that Congress.gov uses to read bills, bill summaries, and the Congressional Record Daily Digest aloud has been upgraded so that it now features full compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards, integrated help content, and an updated user interface.
Enhancements
Enhancement – Search
- Use the Share/Save tool from any search results page to bookmark or email a shortened URL.
Enhancement – Member Profiles – Member Remarks
- Find Congressional Record items where a Member is speaking by using the Member Activity filter from a Member’s profile page.
Enhancement – Legislation – Search
- Search hasCBOCostEstimate:”Y” to find bills and resolutions for which the Congressional Budget Office has produced a cost estimate.
- Find a link to the cost estimate in the More on This Bill section to the right of the Overview.
Enhancement – ReadSpeaker – New Version
- Use the updated ReadSpeaker audio player to listen to Congress.gov content such as summaries, bill text, and the Congressional Record Daily Digest.
- Open the ReadSpeaker menu to adjust settings, enlarge text, explore help and more.
Search Tip
Learn more about fielded searches that are available on Congress.gov. Visit the Search Tools Page and click on “fields across search collections.”
Most-Viewed Bills
Here are the most-viewed bills for the week of January 22, 2023.
| 1. | H.R.61 [118th] | Leading Against White Supremacy Act of 2023 |
| 2. | H.R.25 [118th] | FairTax Act of 2023 |
| 3. | H.Res.57 [117th] | Impeaching Joseph R. Biden, President of the United States, for abuse of power by enabling bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors. |
| 4. | H.R.2617 [117th] | Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 |
| 5. | H.R.26 [118th] | Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act |
| 6. | H.R.5376 [117th] | Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 |
| 7. | S.596 [117th] | Treat and Reduce Obesity Act of 2021 |
| 8. | H.R.7900 [117th] | National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 |
| 9. | H.R.3617 [117th] | Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act |
| 10. | H.R.1636 [117th] | Postal Vehicle Modernization Act |
Subscribe to In Custodia Legis – it’s free! – to receive interesting posts drawn from the Law Library of Congress’s vast collections and our staff’s expertise in U.S., foreign, and international law.
Comments (2)
While new features are great, why can’t you focus on making new bill text available in a timely way? The primary reason I visit congress.gov is to get bill text after seeing bill numbers and summary blurbs, and it’s not available.
Just asking you to focus on first things first, anonymously.
Hello. Congress.gov will display the bill text soon after it has been officially published by GPO. Our system is set up to check GovInfo every 15 minutes.
If the text of a bill is not yet available you can use a Congress.gov account to sign up for bill alerts to be notified when new bill text is available on the site. Click “Get alerts” underneath the header on the bill page to do that. If you don’t already have an account, you can sign up for one here: https://www.congress.gov/account/signin