Congressional Bill Status in Bulk XML

At the direction of the House Appropriations Committee, and in support of the Legislative Branch Bulk Data Task Force, GPO, the Library of Congress (LOC), the Clerk of the House, and the Secretary of Senate are making bill statuses in XML format available through the bulk data repository at https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/bulkdata/BILLSTATUS for the 113th and 114th Congresses.

The House and the Senate each produce detailed, chamber-specific status steps as chambers and committees record daily legislative business. The Library of Congress aggregates those status steps, adds metadata, then provides access through Congress.gov.

U.S. Congress Legislative Status Steps depicts the steps in relation to the general flow by which a bill may become law. The chart was published in 1975 within a committee print titled The Bill Status System for the United States House of Representatives.

The Legislative Process: Overview (video) provides further explanation.

Together with the Congressional Bills and Bill Summaries already available in XML format for bulk download, the Bill Status data can be used by developers to provide additional tracking as Congress takes various actions in consideration of bills.

For more information, visit GPO’s GitHub account for a user guide, sample files, and slides from the December 2015 Bulk Data Task Force Meeting on Bill Status.

If you’re interested in seeing the data itself, head to the Bulk Data Repository.

GPO's GitHub account includes documentation about several of the services available from GPO, including the bulk data site and the API link service. For more information, visit the govinfo Developer Hub.