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REST APIPolitics & Elections

Congress.gov API (v3)

Congress.gov API (v3) is a rest api from Library of Congress providing politics & elections data. The official U.S. legislative data REST API from the Library of Congress, serving structured data on bills, amendments, roll-call votes, members, committees and nominations. It is the authoritative source for resolving "will Congress pass/confirm X" political markets, and a primary replacement after ProPublica's Congress API shut down.

At a glance

ProviderLibrary of Congress
TypeREST API
CategoryPolitics & Elections
Real-timeNo — request/response
AuthAPI key
PricingFree (api.data.gov key, 5,000 req/hr) — Free: requires a free api.data.gov API key (sign up at api.congress.gov/sign-up), Default rate limit: 5,000 requests per hour per key, No paid tiers — fully free U.S. government open data

What data it provides

  • Bills & resolutions (status, actions, sponsors, subjects, text)
  • Amendments to bills
  • Roll-call votes and member positions
  • Members of Congress (current and historical, bio + terms)
  • Committees and committee reports
  • Presidential nominations and Senate confirmation status

Features

  • Rate limit: 5,000 requests/hour per api.data.gov key
  • JSON or XML responses; up to 250 records per page (default 20)
  • Coverage back to the 93rd Congress (1973) for many collections; current Congress updated continuously
  • Standardized request/pagination/data envelope across all endpoints
  • Community SDKs available (e.g. R 'congress' package); no official client library
  • Polling-based REST — not push/streaming, so updates lag legislative action

Links

Use it in a bot

Other politics & elections data sources

Listed, not endorsed. Pricing and capabilities change without notice — check the provider's own documentation before you depend on anything here. Browse the full data resources directory or the strategy database.
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