The Congress API returns the following types of data:
- Roll-call vote data: Only roll-call votes (not voice votes or division votes) are tracked by official Congressional data sources. Along with basic vote data, the ProPublica API returns additional information that is less readily available, such as party totals. Votes are available from 1991 for the House of Representatives and from 1989 for the Senate.
- Member data: Along with general biographical information for current and past members of Congress, the API returns data about members’ Congressional roles. Role data includes the Congress number and chamber, as well as the member’s title, state and party. A single member may have more than one role in a particular Congress (for example, the member may switch parties or move from the House to the Senate). The API also helps you compare member data, including vote positions and bill cosponsorships. Member data is available for every member who has served in Congress, but those who have served more recently (since 1995) have more information.
- Personal explanations: Statements inserted into the Congressional Record explaining why lawmakers missed votes and what their votes would have been (the statements are merely explanations and have no effect on the vote itself).
- Bill data: Along with standard bill summaries and details, the API returns bill subjects, amendments and related bills. You can also retrieve bills by member, view all the cosponsors of a bill, and search for bill subjects. Bill information is available for bills from 1995 onward. Full-text search of bills is also available.
- Nomination data: The API returns presidential civilian nomination lists and details. Military nominations are not included. For general information about presidential nominations, see Congress.gov. Nomination data is available from 2001 onward.
- Floor actions: Descriptions of legislative activity that are updated in near real-time throughout the day. This endpoint exists for both the House and the Senate.
- Committee data: The API returns data about House and Senate committees, along with the memberships of those committees.
- Other data: The API returns various supplemental information, including party counts by state; and committees and committee rosters.
Most of the data in the ProPublica Congress API is updated daily, while votes are updated every 30 minutes.
License
Use of this API is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States license. Commercial users may be subject to additional use fees.
