Congress.gov: An Overview

Congress.gov is the official website for United States federal legislative information, having replaced the former website, Thomas.gov, which was retired July 5, 2016.

The Congress.gov website is a very robust site with many features not formerly found in Thomas. At the top of the Congress.gov homepage is a search box, which by default allows you to search for current legislation — the 115th Congress.  Click on the drop-down and you can search across all legislation.  If your search is too broad, in addition to adding additional terms to narrow your search, you can also choose filters which are to the left on the web page.  You can filter by Congress, source, such as the Congressional Record or committee reports, status of legislation, subject, committee, sponsor, even political party.

All current members of Congress, with their contact information, committee assignments, biographical information, and links to their websites are listed.  From a Congressional member’s page there are links to their remarks in the Congressional Record.

If Congress is in session when you log-on, you can view live proceedings from both the House and the Senate.  Video archives of previous sessions for both the Senate and the House are available.

You can obtain the full text of bills and public laws, and there is a link to the United States Code.  For bills, there is a tracker which allows you to see the progress of a bill from its introduction through all subsequent action.

Most of the work of Congress is done in committees, and a list of all committees, along with their members, is available.  Hearing schedules, and some hearing videos are also available.  Committee reports are available back to 1995.

The Congressional Record, in PDF, is also available back to 1995, with optical character recognition, so that it is searchable.

Nine videos detailing the legislative process from a bill’s introduction to action by the President are available, as well as a link to U.S. Founding Documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Finally, from a member’s page you can set-up an email alert so that you can follow their legislative activity or you can set-up an email alert to track a specific bill.  For either type of alert, all you need to do is create an account with an email address and a password of your choosing.