# US Congress Legislation Intelligence API (`soilair/us-congress-legislation-intelligence-api`) Actor

Search current U.S. Congress bills and resolutions by keyword using official GovInfo BILLSTATUS data. No Congress.gov API key required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/soilair/us-congress-legislation-intelligence-api.md
- **Developed by:** [Salih Can Kurnaz](https://apify.com/soilair) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $3.50 / 1,000 legislation results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

Search current U.S. Congress bills and resolutions by keyword using official GovInfo BILLSTATUS data.

This Actor uses official U.S. Government Publishing Office data and does not require a Congress.gov or GovInfo API key.

### What you get

Each result can include:

- Congress number
- bill or resolution type and number
- official/display title
- sponsor
- introduced date
- latest action date and text
- policy area
- legislative subjects
- committees
- cosponsor count
- law number when enacted
- CRS summary when available
- canonical Congress.gov URL
- GovInfo BILLSTATUS XML URL
- deterministic search score

### Input

```json
{
  "queries": ["artificial intelligence", "data privacy"],
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 10
}
```

`queries` accepts 1–20 keywords. `maxResultsPerQuery` accepts 1–20 strict-match results per query.

### Data source

The Actor downloads the official current-Congress GovInfo BILLSTATUS bulk archives, performs a fast local candidate scan, and fully parses only the candidate legislation needed for the requested queries.

It does not use:

- browser automation
- residential proxies
- third-party scraping APIs
- GovInfo Search API
- `DEMO_KEY`
- a user-supplied second credential

### Relevance

A result is returned only after structured final matching over legislation title, official titles, CRS summary, legislative subjects, and policy area.

The fast raw-byte scan is only a recall-oriented prefilter. It cannot cause a result to enter the Dataset by itself.

### Pricing

Pay-per-event pricing:

- **Search query:** $0.006 per processed keyword.
- **Legislation result (primary event):**
  - FREE: $0.0038/result
  - BRONZE: $0.0037/result
  - SILVER: $0.0036/result
  - GOLD: $0.0035/result
  - PLATINUM: $0.0035/result
  - DIAMOND: $0.0035/result
- **Actor start:** $0.00005 per GB of allocated memory as applied by Apify's synthetic Actor-start event.

With six results per query, the effective GOLD-tier price including the query fee is approximately $4.50 per 1,000 returned results.

### Spending limits

The Actor reads `ACTOR_MAX_TOTAL_CHARGE_USD` before downloading bulk data.

It conservatively reserves:

`Actor-start cost + $0.006 query fee + maxResultsPerQuery × FREE legislation-result price`

for every query it accepts.

If the run budget cannot cover all requested queries at that worst-case bound, only the number of queries that fit is processed.

### Current Congress

This version searches the 119th Congress, the current Congress for the 2025–2026 legislative term. GovInfo bulk files are refreshed by the official source as legislation changes.

### Reliability notes

The Actor is deterministic for the same source snapshot. GovInfo may update its bulk archives during the day; when source content changes, result rankings can change accordingly.

The Actor is not affiliated with Congress.gov or GovInfo.

### Dataset surface

The default Dataset intentionally contains only customer-facing legislation fields. Internal candidate-scan fingerprints, raw matching diagnostics, charge internals, and source ZIP telemetry are not included in Dataset rows.

Operational diagnostics remain in the run summary so they can be inspected without polluting exported bill data.

# Actor input Schema

## `queries` (type: `array`):

One or more legislation keywords. Up to 20 queries per run.

## `maxResultsPerQuery` (type: `integer`):

Maximum strict-match legislation results returned for each query.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "queries": [
    "artificial intelligence"
  ],
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 10
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

## `summary` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("soilair/us-congress-legislation-intelligence-api").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("soilair/us-congress-legislation-intelligence-api").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call soilair/us-congress-legislation-intelligence-api --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,soilair/us-congress-legislation-intelligence-api"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/GwiR2itZIarQDJNbt/builds/UVCbbXkme1ViG3mLQ/openapi.json