Congressional Hackathon 6.0 took place on September 19, 2024 at the U.S. Capitol, co-hosted by Speaker Mike Johnson, Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Szpindor. The event brought together congressional stakeholders to explore the role of digital platforms in the legislative process. After the event, organizers released video from the full proceedings as well as a highlights reel, and are expected to release a report summarizing the proceedings. You can find official resources on previous hackathons here.
Continue Reading March 3, 2025
Library of Congress Public Forum: September 8, 2024
The Library of Congress hosted a public discussion on Congress.gov on September 18, 2024, the fifth such forum it has held. You can watch video of the forum or read the Library of Congress’s summary of the discussion. We published a summary of prior forums from 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020. They are held pursuant to direction from Congress, which required the Library of Congress to meet with the public concerning access to data from Congress.gov. More than fifty people attended in person and 400-500 people were expected to participate online.
Continue Reading March 1, 2025
Congressional Job Listings as Data
The House of Representatives publishes job postings for personal, committee, and leadership offices in the form of a weekly email sent to subscribers. This means that if you’re a job seeker, you must read each PDF each week to see whether there’s a job that might interest you. And if you’re interested in monitoring job posting generally, or sharing those postings with others, you’re out of luck — the information is not published in a data format that allows for re-sharing and analysis. (More on that in a minute).
Continue Reading May 30, 2024
CDTF Meeting Set for June 6, 2024
The next Congressional Data Task Force meeting will take place from 2-4pm ET on June 6, 2024. The public is welcome to attend in person or virtually. More information, including a link to RSVP and a (forthcoming) agenda, is here.
Continue Reading August 18, 2023
Library of Congress Public Forum on its Legislative Information Services
The Library of Congress will hold its annual meeting with the public on its legislative information information services, with a focus on Congress.gov, on Wednesday, September 13, from 1-3 PM ET. The forum will focus on user suggestions for enhanced access to congressional information/data on congress.gov and also provide an opportunity for the Library to provide updates on improvements to that website.
Follow these links to RSVP for in-person attendance and for virtual attendance.
Continue Reading May 22, 2023
Developments from the Congressional Data Task Force Meeting on March 14, 2023
The Congressional Data Task Force convened on March 14, 2023, to discuss a range of topics related to the use and management of data within the legislative branch. The meeting, which included representatives from various government offices and civil society organizations, highlighted several new and interesting developments. Go here for video and slides from the presentations.
Among the highlights:
- Implementation of the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act is due by the end of the year
- The Library of Congress is planning to update/release an API for committee meetings, hearings, and committee prints by the end of 2022
- The House Statements of Disbursements will soon be published as CSV with a number of new identifiers
- The House Digital Service is planning for the upcoming Congressional Hackathon
- The Senate is continuing to make progress on the availability of its video
March 21, 2022
Recap of the March 2022 Bulk Data Task Force Meeting
Last Thursday, March 10, the Bulk Data Task Force held its first quarterly meeting of 2022. The virtual meeting, hosted by the House Clerk’s office, featured presentations from civil society representatives and updates from several legislative branch organizations including GPO, the Library of Congress, the House CAO, the House Clerk, Majority Leader Hoyer’s office, the Secretary of the Senate, and CBO. As Kirsten Gullickson from the House Clerk’s office noted, the virtual format allowed people to participate worldwide. Information from these meetings are posted online.
The video is not yet available, but we will update the blogpost when it is; you can also check here.
Mark your calendars: the second quarterly meeting is scheduled for June 9 from 2-3:30 EST.
Continue Reading December 1, 2021
Tweeting Out Legislative Branch Procurement
We are pleased to announce a new Twitter Bot that tweets procurement notices published by Legislative branch agencies on Sam.gov. These procurements and accompanying documentation can shed light on Legislative branch plans, operations, and priorities.
Continue Reading September 4, 2021
How to Track Legislative Memes
Legislation is how ideas are put into a format that Congress can process and transform into law. Some ideas are introduced again and again, but in different formats or at different times. Some bills in one chamber of Congress may have a nearly identical version introduced in the other. The same bill can be introduced again and again over multiple Congresses until it is enacted into law. Or a group of legislative ideas can be rolled together into a larger legislative package.
I like to think of ideas contained in legislation as legislative memes, which is a powerful way to understand what Congress is doing. We are working on a legislative tool, call BillMap, that allows you to track legislative memes as they move through Congress.
Continue Reading August 30, 2021
Recap of Bulk Data Task Force Meeting on July 14, 2021
The Bulk Data Task Force met on July 14, 2021, for the first quarterly meeting since October 2019, which is just before the COVID pandemic began. The virtual meeting included presentations from the House of Representatives, the Library of Congress, GPO, the Senate, and Demand Progress Education Fund. Video from the 2-hour long proceedings are available here and slides from the presentations are available on GPO’s Innovation Hub. More than 100 people were pre-registered to attend the meeting.
Continue Reading