US Congress Legislation Tracker

US Congress Legislation Tracker retrieves bills, resolutions, and amendments from the official Congress.gov API — the Library of Congress's authoritative legislative database. Filter by chamber (House/Senate), bill type, keyword, date range, and Congress session. Each record includes the bill title, current status, latest action, and direct Congress.gov link. Works with the free DEMO_KEY or your own API key for higher limits.

Congressional legislation is the upstream source of regulatory change: tariffs, crypto regulation, drug approvals, data privacy rules, and tax law all start here. This actor makes that pipeline queryable and automatable.

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Why use US Congress Legislation Tracker?

1. Regulatory intelligence — Track all bills mentioning "cryptocurrency", "stablecoin", "digital asset", or "DeFi" as they're introduced. Know about regulatory proposals before they become news.
2. Policy research — Monitor legislation in specific areas (healthcare, energy, technology) by keyword. Filter to only bills that advanced beyond introduction to identify live legislative threats.
3. Lobbying and government affairs — Track committee referrals, floor votes, and presidential signings for bills relevant to your industry. Get alerts when status changes.
4. Civic tech and journalism — Power dashboards showing real-time legislative activity by member, committee, or topic. Build constituent notification tools.
5. Market event detection — Certain legislation (farm bills, defense spending) has direct market impact. Monitor key keywords to anticipate sector-level effects.

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How to use

1. Open the actor on Apify Store and click Try for free.
2. Set keyword to filter by topic (e.g. "artificial intelligence", "cryptocurrency").
3. Set chamber and billType to narrow your search.
4. Set since to get only recently updated legislation.
5. Optionally add your free Congress.gov API key for higher rate limits.
6. Click Start. Returns structured bill records from Congress.gov.

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Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
congress	integer	Current	Congress session number (119 = 119th Congress, 2025–2027)
chamber	string	"all"	Filter: all, house, or senate
billType	string	"all"	Bill type: hr, s, hjres, sjres, hconres, sconres, hres, sres, or all
keyword	string	""	Filter bills whose title contains this keyword (case-insensitive)
since	string	""	ISO 8601 date — only bills updated after this date (e.g. "2026-01-01")
maxResults	integer	20	Maximum bills to return (1–250)
apiKey	string	"DEMO_KEY"	Congress.gov API key (free at api.congress.gov — raises limit from 30 to 5000 req/hour)

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Output

{
  "bill_number": "H.R.1234",
  "bill_type": "hr",
  "title": "Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act",
  "congress": 119,
  "chamber": "House",
  "latest_action_date": "2026-03-15",
  "latest_action_text": "Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.",
  "update_date": "2026-03-16",
  "url": "https://api.congress.gov/v3/bill/119/hr/1234"
}

Output fields

Field	Type	Description
bill_number	string	Full bill identifier (e.g. H.R.1234, S.456)
bill_type	string	Type code: hr (House bill), s (Senate bill), hjres, sjres, etc.
title	string	Official bill title
congress	integer	Congress session number
chamber	string	House or Senate
latest_action_date	string	Date of most recent legislative action
latest_action_text	string	Description of latest action (committee referral, floor vote, signed)
update_date	string	When Congress.gov last updated this record
url	string	Direct link to the bill on Congress.gov API

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Bill type reference

Code	Description
hr	House Bill (requires both chambers + president)
s	Senate Bill (requires both chambers + president)
hjres	House Joint Resolution (same force as a bill)
sjres	Senate Joint Resolution
hres	House Simple Resolution (House only, no force of law)
sres	Senate Simple Resolution

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Cost estimation

Pay-Per-Event: $0.005 per actor start + $0.002 per bill returned.

Use case	Records	Estimated cost
20 recent bills (default)	20	~$0.04/run
Keyword search, 100 results	100	~$0.20/run
Daily monitoring (50 bills)	50	~$0.10/day
Full session sweep (250)	250	~$0.50/run

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FAQ

How do I get a free Congress.gov API key? Go to api.congress.gov, click "Sign Up for an API Key", and enter your email. The key arrives instantly and raises your limit from 30 to 5,000 requests per hour.

Does it include committee markup and floor votes? The latest_action_text reflects the most recent legislative action, which includes committee referrals, markup sessions, floor passage, Senate passage, and presidential signature. Track latest_action_date over time to build a status history.

How far back does the data go? Congress.gov covers legislation from the 93rd Congress (1973) to the present. Set congress: 93 to access 1973–1975 legislation.

Does it track bill amendments? Yes — hjres, sjres, hconres, sconres are all available via the billType filter. Amendments to specific bills are tracked as separate entries.

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Related actors

• SEC Enforcement Tracker — Regulatory enforcement actions (downstream of legislation)
• Credit Rating Change Tracker — Rating agency actions on government issuers affected by fiscal legislation
• M&A Deals Tracker — Track legislation enabling/blocking major M&A (FTC reform bills, etc.)

Feedback

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