About GovTrack.us

Creating government transparency and civic engagement through novel uses of technology.

Follow us on Twitter @govtrack or join our Facebook page.

Stay up to date with site changes by reading our blog. GovTrack is constantly evolving.

GovTrack.us, a tool by Civic Impulse, LLC, is one of the worldʼs most visited government transparency websites. The site helps ordinary citizens find and track bills in the U.S. Congress and understand their representatives’ legislative record.

In 2012, GovTrack.us was used by more than 5 million individuals. Its embeddable widgets were deployed on more than 70 official websites of Members of Congress.

We bring together the status of U.S. federal legislation, voting records for the Senate and House of Representatives, information on Members of Congress, congressional district maps, and more. Most of the information is assembled in an automated way by scanning federal government websites, such as THOMAS. State legislative information is available here through a partnership with LegiNation, Inc. and LegiScan, Inc.

Once we get the information, we make it easier to understand and we let you track bills for updates with email updates and RSS feeds. We also have unique statistical analyses to put the information in context. Read the «Analysis Methodology».

GovTrack openly shares the data it brings together so that other websites can build other tools to help citizens engage with government. See the «Developer Documentation» for more. We have led the open government data movement in the United States since GovTrack’s launch in 2004, and the site has served as a model for legislative transparency websites around the world.

Who we are

GovTrack was created in 2004 by Joshua Tauberer originally as a hobby. Today it is a project of Civic Impulse, LLC, his company. See our «Press Clippings» to read what people think of the site.

GovTrack isn’t affiliated with the government, and our only funding comes from advertising. You can read our «Advertising Policy».

To send us a note, email operations@govtrack.us.

Also on staff are Aviad Eilam, GovTrack’s director of communications, and Gordon P. Hemsley, developer. The site’s design is by Village Creative. Past designs were by Ben Rellick and Daniel Gabriele. Past staff members and contributors include Grigoriy Petukhov and Kevin Henry.

Information coverage & timeliness

We pull in current federal legislative data about as fast as Congress makes it available on its websites. Our database also extends into the past. Here’s a full coverage table:

Current Information (113th Congress)
Bill Status From THOMAS.gov via congress project.
Updated daily, with legislative activity appearing the next business day
Bill Text From THOMAS.gov and GPO.gov FDSys.
Updated daily, with text available 1-3 business days after a bill is introduced or has other major action
Votes From the Senate and House websites via congress project.
Updated hourly
Committee Meetings From the Senate website and Docs.House.Gov via congress project.
Updated daily; House committee meetings may be incomplete
Committee Assignments From the Senate and House websites via congress project.
Updated periodically
1993-2012 (103rd-112th Congresses)
Bill Status From THOMAS.gov.
Bill Text From THOMAS.gov and GPO.gov FDSys.
Votes From the Senate and House websites.
1973-1992 (93rd-102nd Congresses)
Bill Status From THOMAS.gov.
Bill Text From the Statutes at Large on GPO.gov FDSys (volumes 87-106), via congress project, only enacted bills and concurrent resolutions agreed to
Votes From the House website starting in 1990 (101st Congress, 2nd Session), from the Senate website starting in 1989 (101st Congress), and before that from Rosenthal & Poole’s database (see below).
1951-1972 (82nd-92nd Congresses)
Bill Status & Text Only enacted bills and concurrent resolutions agreed to. From the Statutes at Large on GPO.gov FDSys (volumes 65-86), via congress project
Votes From Rosenthal & Poole’s database (see below).
1789-1950 (1st-81st Congresses)
Votes From Rosenthal & Poole’s United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1990, Carnegie Mellon University. (Senate votes through 1989, House votes through 1990.)
Other Information
Members of Congress Biographical information is from the congress-legislators project, a community repository we develop and help maintain.
District Boundaries Congressional district boundaries on the maps are from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Bill Summaries We display several sorts of bill summaries, including some that we write ourselves. Other summaries are from the Library of Congress’s Congressional Research Service (via THOMAS) and the House Republican Conference.
Photos Photos of Members of Congress are credited on the pages for each Member of Congress. They have been sourced from various locations, including the Congressional Pictorial Directory, the Congressional Biographical Directory, and the House Republican Conference.
State Legislation From LegiNation, Inc., LegiScan, Inc, and OpenStates.
Updated weekly

The Open Government / Open Government Data / Government Transparency Movements

The open government movement involves citizens, web developers, designers, researchers, writers, statisticians, government managers, and elected officials in a concerted effort to make data a national asset, to make government more transparent and effective, and to empower citizens to participate effectively in governance and in their communities.

Since our launch in 2004, GovTrack has been a leader in the growing and changing open government movement. GovTrack’s creator, Josh, also works on the policy angle of open government data. He wrote about it in the book Open Government Data: The Book (2012).

Join our movement. Here are some resources: