The Library of Congress held its sixth annual public forum on access to legislative information on Congress.gov on September 30, 2025. Andrew Weber, product owner of Congress.gov, served as master of ceremonies for a program that ran nearly two hours and drew presenters from the Library, the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the House Clerk’s Office, the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Publishing Office (GPO), and the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Video of the event is embedded at the bottom of this summary.
Continue readingLegislative Branch Data Map
One important project catalyzed by the 2025 Congressional Hackathon was the coming together of a Legislative branch data map, the existence of which had been requested by Appropriators. The map is an effort to identify across the Legislative branch the different sources for congressional data and drew rhetorical inspiration from the 2013 executive order on making open and machine readable the new default for government information, the 2018 Open Government Data Act, and advocacy from public-interest minded groups.
The map data was seeded from my 2023 biased yet reliable guide to sources of information and data about congress and collaborations from governmental members of the Congressional Data Task Force, although its GitHub repository quickly drew pull requests from hackathon participants as well. In other words, anyone can suggest items to add to the list of Legislative branch data sources and that list can point to official and non-official sources for data. The map improves the findability of information and makes it discoverable when someone has done the hard work to refine that information into a useful format.
Here is where you can find and suggest edits to the Legislative Branch Data Map, version 0.1.
Library of Congress Sets Congress.gov Forum for Sept. 30, 2025
The Library of Congress will hold its annual Congress.gov Public Forum on September 30th, 2025, from 1-3:30 PM ET. The hybrid forum will allow people to attend in person at the Library of Congress’s Jefferson building or online. Here is how to RSVP.
Continue readingCongressional Hackathon 7.0 announced for September 17
The Seventh Congressional Hackathon will take place on Wednesday, September 17th, from 1-6 pm in the CVC Auditorium at the U.S. Capitol. The non-partisan event was jointly announced by Speaker Johnson and Democratic Leader Jeffries and will be co-hosted by the House Chief Administrative Officer. The event is open to the public, and pre-registration is required. From the announcement:
Continue readingCongressional Data Task Force Recap: June 10, 2025
The Congressional Data Task Force held its second quarterly meeting of 2025 on June 10. The agenda for the meeting can be found here and the video here. The Congressional Hackathon will serve as its next meeting and will be held in September, date TBD.
Continue readingCongressional Hackathon Official Report
The House of Representatives just published its report from the 2024 Congressional Hackathon here.
Save the date: Congressional Data Task Force Meeting Scheduled June 10, 2025
Congress has announced the next Congressional Data Task Force will next meet on June 10, 2025, from 2-4 pm. This will be a hybrid meeting, with the opportunity to join online or in person in Longworth B-248. Registration is required.
Continue readingCongressional Data Task Force Recap: March 11, 2025
The Congressional Data Task Force held its first quarterly meeting of 2025 on March 11. As always, video of the meeting and the slides from presenters are available on the Legislative Branch Innovation Hub.
Continue readingLibrary of Congress Publishes Some CRS Reports as HTML and via API
Today the Library of Congress began publishing (some) Congressional Research Service reports as HTML and making (some) reports accessible via API. See the announcement here.
Continue readingCongressional Hackathon 6.0
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.
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