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Archive for the Congress Category (237 posts)

New Committee Hearing Transcripts on Congress.gov: New, Tip, and Top for September 2020

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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.

Committee hearing transcripts are not available on Congress.gov.

Committee hearing transcripts are now available on Congress.gov.

Enhancements

New – Committee Meetings – Hearing Transcripts

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

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

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

 

Explore the Bound Congressional Record on Congress.gov

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We are excited to start adding the volumes of the Congressional Record (Bound Edition) (also referred to as the “Bound Congressional Record”) to Congress.gov. If you’re not familiar with the Congressional Record, it is a record of the debate and proceedings that occur on the floor of Congress. It is published in two different ways. The […]

Find a Member of Congress by Address on Congress.gov

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In June, Margaret shared that we had added district maps to member profile pages on Congress.gov. Each map on a member profile can be expanded to show a larger size version of the map. With today’s update to Congress.gov, we build upon the district maps by adding a new search box to help you find your member. […]

Congress.gov: Midway Through 2020

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It occurred to me that with today’s release we are now midway through 2020. I thought it would be nice to take a step back and review the enhancements that we have made with Congress.gov so far this year. For our first release in early January, we added the ability to link directly to a section […]

The Bound Edition of the Congressional Record for the 103rd Congress is Now Available on Congress.gov

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The Congressional Record on Congress.gov provides a detailed account of the debates and proceedings of Congress, and is a helpful source for conducting research on the legislative history of a piece of legislation. Until now, the Congressional Record on Congress.gov has consisted exclusively of the Daily Edition of the Record. There is another version of […]

Congress.gov New, Tip and Top for May of 2020, Part 2

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Earlier this month, Andrew shared the exciting news about several significant new features that had been added to Congress.gov including the new Global Search bar, the addition of Committee Prints, and translation of the Overview of Legislative Process video into Spanish. The enhancements for this month’s second release include a redesigned Congressional Record header. We have […]

New Global Search Bar, Committee Prints, and Legislative Process in Spanish on Congress.gov

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Last month, Amy Swantner shared information about how Legislation Text search results in Congress.gov have been enhanced with Key Word in Context. For today’s release, several helpful new features have been added to Congress.gov. The global search bar has been updated to default to Current Congress instead of Current Legislation, Committee Prints are available for […]

KWIC Search Results for Legislation Text on Congress.gov

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The following is a guest post by Amy Swantner, a specialist in legislative information systems management within the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress. Imagine the following: you are interested in finding legislation about a specific topic. You carefully choose search terms you think will find those bills most relevant to your needs. […]