In February, Andrew announced that we have added to the Browse page, under “Debates of Congress,” Page Headings and Index links for the Annals of Congress. This goes from the first Congress through the 18th Congress (1823-1825). He also mentioned that, based on user feedback, when you click on the actions tab of a legislation page, it will default to “All Actions” rather than “Actions Overview,” which it went to previously. He also mentioned that we have added a new column to the House and Senate Hearing Transcripts Browse pages and videos are now embedded on Senate Committee Meeting pages.
In this release, we have added a hearingTreaty search field to easily locate hearing transcripts with a relationship to a treaty document. For example, I used the global search box on the Congress.gov homepage and changed the dropdown menu to “All Congresses,” and then typed in hearingTreaty:115-2, which led me to the transcript of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting concerning this treaty. Also in this release, we have provided access to the Statutes at Large version of a law from the public or private laws browse page, made it easier to locate specific pages in the Bound Congressional Record, and provided links from the appropriations status table to related resources. Finally, based on API user feedback, the Congress.gov API rate limit has been increased from 1000 requests per hour by API key to 5000.
Enhancements
The full list of Congress.gov enhancements includes:
Enhancement – Committee Hearings – Search
- Search in Committee Materials using the field label hearingTreaty: to find committee hearings associated with a particular treaty.
Enhancement – Laws – Browse
- From the Public or Private Laws browse page, click on a citation to open a PDF of the Statutes at Large version of the law when available.
- Click on a bill number to go to the Text tab of the bill page.
Enhancement – Bound Congressional Record – Search
- Select a year and enter a page number to go to a specific page of the Bound Congressional Record.
Enhancement – Appropriations Status Table – Additional Resources
- Use the links at the top of the Appropriations Status Table to go to related resources such as the Congress.gov Appropriations and Budget Resources help page.
Enhancement – Congress.gov API – Rate Limit
- The rate limit on the Congress.gov API is set to 5000 requests per hour.
Congress.gov Tip
The new page headings and indexes for the Annals of Congress on Congress.gov provide enhanced access to historical debates of the United States Congress that can assist historians with their research and students with their reports. For example, I browsed the new page headings for the first Congress and noticed an entry for “Permanent Seat of Government.” This helped me locate an early debate concerning selecting a permanent capitol for the federal government of the new United States.
Most-Viewed Bills
The following are most-viewed bills for the week of March 10, 2024.
| 1. | H.R.7511 [118th] | Laken Riley Act |
| 2. | H.R.7024 [118th] | Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 |
| 3. | H.R.4366 [118th] | Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 |
| 4. | H.R.2 [118th] | Secure the Border Act of 2023 |
| 5. | S.2747 [117th] | Freedom to Vote Act |
| 6. | H.R.7521 [118th] | Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act |
| 7. | S.3558 [118th] | A bill to prohibit contracting with certain biotechnology providers, and for other purposes. |
| 8. | H.R.7463 [118th] | Extension of Continuing Appropriations and Other Matters Act, 2024 |
| 9. | H.R.82 [118th] | Social Security Fairness Act of 2023 |
| 10. | S.596 [117th] | Treat and Reduce Obesity Act of 2021 |
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