Download and parse the GovInfo BILLSTATUS bulk XML feed to monitor congressional bill progress

domain: www.govinfo.gov · 6 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps

  1. Browse the bulk data directory structure: GET https://www.govinfo.gov/bulkdata/json/BILLSTATUS/{congress} (e.g., /119) to list the available sessions and bill-type subdirectories
  2. Navigate to a specific bill type: GET https://www.govinfo.gov/bulkdata/json/BILLSTATUS/{congress}/{session}/{type} (e.g., /119/1/hr) to list individual bill XML file entries
  3. Download a specific bill status XML: GET https://www.govinfo.gov/bulkdata/BILLSTATUS/119/1/hr/BILLSTATUS-119hr1.xml
  4. Parse the XML to extract: billType, billNumber, latestAction, actions (with actionDate and actionCode), committees, sponsors, cosponsors, and subjects
  5. For bulk monitoring, use the RSS feed at https://www.govinfo.gov/rss/billstatus.xml which publishes new entries as bills are updated throughout the legislative day
  6. Cross-reference with the GovInfo packages API: GET https://api.govinfo.gov/collections/BILLS?pageSize=100&api_key={key} to retrieve the full bill text PDFs and XML linked from each BILLSTATUS record

Known gotchas

Related routes

Retrieve Congress.gov bill status, actions, and cosponsors via the Congress.gov API v3
api.congress.gov · 6 steps · unrated

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