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Archive for the Congress Category (256 posts)

New Browse, Updated Bill Alerts, and More: Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top for July 2021

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Earlier this month, Margaret shared the exciting news that we added bills and resolutions from 1799-1873 to Congress.gov. There was also a press release to highlight this new feature of content from Century of Lawmaking.

We previously added Key Word in Context (KWIC) to Legislative Text on the Quick Search Form. With today’s release we have added it to the Congressional Record on the same form. One thing that is great about this is you can also see where your search term in context as it shows up in the PDFs of the Bound Congressional Record. We also continue to keep adding to the Bound Congressional Record collection and now go back to the 69th Congress (1925-1927).

As we have been working on adding the Bound Congressional Record and the Statutes at Large to Congress.gov, we have also been updating the Browse page for both items. The Statutory Citation has been added to the Public Law Browse.

A list of the statutes at large on the browse page of Congress.gov

New Browse page with the Statutory Citation on Congress.gov

We added a link to the Daily Digest tab for the Bound Congressional Record Browse.

A screenshot of the new Bound Congressional Record Browse page

The Daily Digest is now included in some of the older Congresses for the Bound Congressional Record

We have also worked on enhancing our bill alerts in a couple ways. When setting up a bill alert, you will be able to select options that indicate what type of bill alerts you would like to receive. In addition to selecting from the previous alert items of actions, text, summaries and cosponsors, you can also choose to receive alerts on related bills, amendments, committees, titles, subjects, and CBO cost estimates. When you receive your new alerts, there will be more details in the email. For example, the new alert will include the new number of cospsonsors or the new action (rather than just say that there are new cosponsors or a new action as before).

And one final item is the ability to do a title search for items from the Committee Schedule such as title:”Library of Congress”.

Enhancements

The second set of Congress.gov enhancements for July include the following.

Enhancement – Congressional Record – Keyword In Context

  • Congressional Record search results display two snippets from the text of each search result, showing the search terms in context.
  • Use the Show Keywords In Context checkbox to hide or display the text snippets in your search results.

Enhancement – Bill Alerts – Choose which changes to track

  • You can choose which changes to track when setting up an alert for an individual bill or resolution.
  • After logging in, go to your Alerts management page and use the Edit Alert link to update your track changes preferences.
  • Options for tracking changes include cosponsors, actions, related bills, amendments, committees, titles, summaries, subjects, CBO cost estimates and bill, resolution or law text.

Enhancement – Congressional Record – Bound Edition

Congress.gov Tip

Last year we held a Congress.gov Virtual Public Forum in September. We plan to host another one on September 2 at 1:00 PM Eastern that you can register for.

Most-Viewed Bills

Below are the most-viewed bills for the week of July 18, 2021.

1. H.R.1319 [117th] American Rescue Plan Act of 2021
2. H.R.6666 [116th] COVID-19 Testing, Reaching, And Contacting Everyone (TRACE) Act
3. H.R.1 [117th] For the People Act of 2021
4. H.R.666 [117th] Anti-Racism in Public Health Act of 2021
5. H.R.3684 [117th] INVEST in America Act
6. H.R.3648 [117th] EAGLE Act of 2021
7. H.R.6 [117th] American Dream and Promise Act of 2021
8. S.1260 [117th] United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021
9. H.R.3884 [116th] MORE Act of 2020
10. H.R.133 [116th] Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021

Congress.gov July 2021 Release: the Addition of 30,000 Bills and Resolutions from 1799-1873

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I enjoy commemorating anniversary dates for all sorts of events both on the wider historic stage and with respect to the Library. Yesterday, July 5, 2021, was the fifth anniversary of the retirement of our former legislative website THOMAS. This might sound like a sad anniversary, but THOMAS was replaced by Congress.gov into which we […]

Congress.gov June 2021 New, Tip, and Top

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In May, Andrew highlighted the addition of the Statutes at Large from the 82nd – 92nd Congresses (1951-1972) to Congress.gov. He also mentioned that these laws did not yet have titles listed in Congress.gov, and that the titles would be added in a future release. With this release, the Congress.gov team has added the titles […]

Congress.gov May 2021 New, Tip and Top

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Last month, Robert publicized the addition of historic materials to Congress.gov, including the bound Congressional Record going back to 1951 and the Statutes at Large back to 1973. This month, we are very happy to be introducing a citation tool for Congress.gov users. Over the years, many of our patrons have asked for citation information […]

Explore Congressional Reactions to Historic Events on Congress.gov

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The Congress.gov team has received feedback requesting that we add content from prior congresses to the Congressional Record and public law text collections. We are pleased to announce that we have made substantial progress on this request. The Bound Congressional Record collection now goes back to the 82nd Congress (1951-1953) and the full text of […]

What’s new in Congress.gov? Spring 2021 Edition

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Most of our Congress.gov posts focus on the enhancements which are part of our three week sprint cycles by which we release new material and upgrades to Congress.gov. However, sometimes I like to take a longer look back at the work we have done and provide a bigger snapshot of the Congress.gov enhancements. At the […]

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

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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 […]