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Archive for the Congress Category (206 posts)

Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top for February 2019

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In January, Robert announced the first version of the new Committee Schedule that we have been working on.  It is a great way to see quickly which meetings and hearings the House and Senate committees have scheduled for the week.

New Enhancements for February 2019

You can find all of the Congress.gov Enhancements for February and before on our site.  What is new this month?

Enhancement – Chamber of Origin filter – Open by default

  • The Chamber of Origin filter on search results has been moved higher on the page and is open by default so you can quickly limit your results to measures from one chamber.

Chamber of Origin Filter now higher and open by default

Search Tip

The week’s search tip is how to “Modify Saved Searches for a New Congress.”

This week, our tip focuses on easy ways to modify your saved searches to have them run against the new congress, and to continue to receive alerts for those searches.

  1. Log into your Congress.gov account, using the red Sign In link at the top right of the homepage.
  2. Go to your Saved Searches page. On the Saved Search that you want to modify, select Edit Search. This will open the search form.
  3. On the search form, switch the Congress by unchecking the prior Congress and checking the new one. Then click Search.
  4. On the search results page, notice the result set and new result count. Also notice (Edited) next to your saved search name. Click on Save this Search to save the changes, and click the Save button on the pop-up box to save the search.
  5. A pop-up box appears asking you to confirm if you want to overwrite the existing saved search. Click Yes to save your old search with the new Congress selection.

Your modified saved search is now saved in your Saved Searches page, the search will now run against the new Congress, and you will continue to receive alerts about any activity on your search in the new Congress.

A note - if you do not already have a Congress.gov account set up, and would like to create one to save and receive alerts on your searches, you can go to https://www.congress.gov/account/register to create your account. Detailed instructions are available at: https://www.congress.gov/help/account.

Most Viewed Bills

For the week of February 3, 2019, the latest Most-Viewed Bills on Congress.gov include the following.

1. H.R.790 [116th] Federal Civilian Workforce Pay Raise Fairness Act of 2019
2. H.R.1 [116th] For the People Act of 2019
3. H.J.Res.28 [116th] Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019
4. S.1 [116th] Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act of 2019
5. H.R.1 [115th] An Act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to titles II and V of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018.
6. S.66 [116th] Assault Weapons Ban of 2019
7. H.R.8 [116th] Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019
8. H.R.420 [116th] Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act
9. H.R.25 [116th] FairTax Act of 2019
10. H.R.648 [116th] Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019

If you have any comments or feedback on Congress.gov, please feel free to share it with us.

Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top for January 2019

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We are excited to bring you our Unified Congressional Committee Calendar, a place where you can quickly view all of the House and Senate committee meetings and hearings scheduled for a given week or day. If available, the detail pages for those hearings will also provide you with a list of witnesses, a link to […]

The Congress.gov Top 18 in 2018

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Congress.gov celebrated its sixth birthday this year on September 19.  It has come a long way since the initial beta website, which was launched with filters, the status of legislation tracker, legislative process videos, a mobile friendly responsive design, and member pages.  Those were all items that were not available on the former THOMAS website.  […]

Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top for December 2018

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Robert shared last month about the new subcommittee features and other enhancements.  In September, he announced the Congress.gov Chrome extension.  We have now updated the Chrome extension.  You can download the new version from LC Labs.  Be sure to share your feedback. New Enhancements for November 2018 We are continuing to work on the new Committee […]

Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top for November 2018

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Andrew recently brought you an update concerning our work on a unified Congressional Committee Calendar.  So, what’s new for Congress.gov in November? The latest enhancements include an update to the legislation and committee report search forms. Both forms now display committee selection lists that reflect committee name changes throughout the years. Also, legislation search results for a single Congress now include a subcommittee filter so you […]

Congress.gov Search Tip – How to Track Specific Changes to Legislation with Email Alerts

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The Congress.gov team recently improved saved search alerts for legislation. This improvement applies to searches that are performed from the legislation homepage search form and the advanced search form. Initially, saved search alerts for legislation provided you with a list of new items added to your search results list, as well as of items already in your […]

Calendars and Schedules on Congress.gov

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When Congress passed the Library of Congress’ budget (H.R.5895) for FY2019, H. Rept. 115-696—LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS BILL, 2019—included the following language related to Congress.gov: Congress.gov Calendar: Not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Library of Congress and the Government Publishing Office shall update the Congress.gov website to include […]

Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top for October 2018

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We have had a busy month.  Dr. Hayden recently blogged about the CRS reports website.  Robert shared the news about our enhanced Congress.gov saved search email alerts.  He also posted about the new experimental Congress.gov Chrome browser extension. What’s new to Congress.gov in October? New Enhancements for October 2018 For this release the Congress.gov Enhancements include: Enhancement – Advanced Legislation Search – […]

Try the New Experimental Congress.gov Chrome Browser Extension

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Have you ever found yourself reading a news story about legislation, and wished that you could quickly discover the primary source that the article discusses? With that use case in mind, we are excited to bring you an experimental, open source Google Chrome browser extension that will provide you with enhanced access to Congress.gov from third-party webpages, […]