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Archive for the Congress Category (262 posts)

Congress.gov October 2021 New, Tip, and Top

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Andrew’s Congress.gov post at the end of September featured a video that provided an overview of 10 recent enhancements to Congress.gov. In the latest release, we have made it easier for users to search for historical congressional legislation, or more recent legislation, by grouping together these options through the use of checkboxes on the legislative quick search form and the advanced legislation search form. In addition, when you choose to search historical legislation, fields that are not available in that data will be disabled.

This displays the legislation quick search form on Congress.gov with the historical and more recent Congress boxes highlighted.

Checkboxes make it more convenient for users to choose to search for historical or recent legislation on Congress.gov.

Enhancements

Enhancement – Legislation – Search

  • Congress checkboxes allow you to separate historical material from more recent legislation when using the legislation search form or the advanced legislation search form.
  • Options for searching metadata, such as sponsors and committees, are disabled when you have selected only historical Congresses. Legislation for historical Congresses includes titles, text, and an abbreviated actions list.
  • Tooltips, visible when you move your cursor over the icon next to a Congress checkbox, display helpful reminders and links to help pages for more details.

Enhancement – Congressional Record – Bound Edition

Search Tip

Now that over a century of congressional floor debates are available in Congress.gov, you can make the most of it by using the keyword in context feature to search the Bound Congressional Record. On the Congress.gov homepage, click on the dropdown menu next to the search box, choose “Congressional Record” in the dropdown, type in your search terms, and on the results screen at the top left-hand corner, check “show Keywords in Context.” This will display a snippet of text below each search result, showing the keywords that you searched for in context so you can decide if the result is relevant to you.

Most-Viewed Bills

These are the most-viewed bills for the week of October 10, 2021:

1. H.R.3684 [117th] Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
2. H.R.1319 [117th] American Rescue Plan Act of 2021
3. H.R.4350 [117th] National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022
4. H.R.4980 [117th] To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to ensure that any individual traveling on a flight that departs from or arrives to an airport inside the United States or a territory of the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and for other purposes.
5. H.R.5376 [117th] Build Back Better Act
6. H.R.5305 [117th] Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act
7. 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.
8. H.R.3755 [117th] Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021
9. S.1301 [117th] Promoting Physical Activity for Americans Act
10. H.R.3617 [117th] MORE Act of 2021

New Video – Recent Enhancements to Congress.gov

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Congress.gov is constantly improving. We do releases approximately every three weeks to enhance the website and incorporate user feedback. There is a great new video highlighting 10 recent enhancements inspired by feedback. Watch the video below to learn what is new to the site and visit our Congress.gov Enhancement Timeline for more details. In addition […]

Thank You for Attending the 2021 Congress.gov Virtual Public Forum!

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On September 2, 2021, the Library of Congress, in collaboration with our data partners, held a Congress.gov Virtual Public Forum to provide updates on the enhancements made to Congress.gov over the past year and provide a forum to learn more about how we can better serve your legislative information needs. The Library’s Digital Strategy Director […]

Congress.gov September 2021 New, Tip and Top, Part 1

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We celebrated the beginning of meteorological fall with our Congress.gov Public Forum on September 2, 2021. The forum opened with a recap by Andrew of the enhancements to Congress.gov since last fall. We will be posting a recording of this forum in the near future. In the meantime, our release today includes historical content in […]

Congress.gov August 2021 New, Tip, and Top

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At the end of July, Andrew shared the enhancements from the last Congress.gov release, which included adding Key Word In Context (KWIC) search results for the Bound Congressional Record and new customization options for bill alerts. With this month’s release, a link to the treaty errata tab from the overview section on treaty detail pages […]

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 […]

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 […]