Access the Congress.gov API.
congress 
congress provides a mostly tidy interface to the Congress.gov API, available at https://github.com/LibraryOfCongress/api.congress.gov/. It provides a simple R interface for downloading and working with actions, bills, nominations, and more from Congress.
Installation
You can install the stable version of congress from CRAN with:
install.packages('congress')
You can install the development version of congress from GitHub with:
# install.packages('devtools')
devtools::install_github('christopherkenny/congress')
Example
To get the most recent nominations, we can use the cong_nomination() function. By default, it gets the most recent 20. We request here, the most recent 10.
library(congress)
cong_nomination(limit = 10)
#> # A tibble: 10 × 13
#> citation congress description latest_action_action…¹ latest_action_text
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <date> <chr>
#> 1 PN1293 118 Robin Michelle M… 2024-06-20 Cloture motion pr…
#> 2 PN830 118 Patricia L. Lee,… 2024-06-20 Cloture motion pr…
#> 3 PN1355 118 Charles J. Willo… 2024-06-20 Cloture motion pr…
#> 4 PN1343 118 Stephanie Sander… 2024-06-20 Confirmed by the …
#> 5 PN1851 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 6 PN1847 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 7 PN1850 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 8 PN1842 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 9 PN1849 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 10 PN1848 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> # ℹ abbreviated name: ¹latest_action_action_date
#> # ℹ 8 more variables: nomination_type_is_civilian <chr>, number <chr>,
#> # organization <chr>, part_number <chr>, received_date <date>,
#> # update_date <dttm>, url <chr>, nomination_type_is_military <chr>
You can request up to 250 results, using limit. Once a request has been made, you can request the next set by using the offset argument:
cong_nomination(limit = 10, offset = 10)
#> # A tibble: 10 × 13
#> citation congress latest_action_action_date latest_action_text
#> <chr> <chr> <date> <chr>
#> 1 PN1847 118 2024-06-20 Received in the Senate and refer…
#> 2 PN1805 118 2024-06-20 Committee on the Judiciary. Hear…
#> 3 PN1807 118 2024-06-20 Committee on the Judiciary. Hear…
#> 4 PN1842 118 2024-06-20 Received in the Senate and refer…
#> 5 PN1808 118 2024-06-20 Committee on the Judiciary. Hear…
#> 6 PN1850 118 2024-06-20 Received in the Senate and refer…
#> 7 PN1806 118 2024-06-20 Committee on the Judiciary. Hear…
#> 8 PN1461 118 2024-06-20 Cloture invoked in Senate by Yea…
#> 9 PN1849 118 2024-06-20 Received in the Senate and refer…
#> 10 PN1851 118 2024-06-20 Received in the Senate and refer…
#> # ℹ 9 more variables: nomination_type_is_military <chr>, number <chr>,
#> # organization <chr>, part_number <chr>, received_date <date>,
#> # update_date <dttm>, url <chr>, description <chr>,
#> # nomination_type_is_civilian <chr>
You can also request the next set using the cong_request_next() function:
cong_nomination(limit = 10) |>
cong_request_next()
#> # A tibble: 20 × 13
#> citation congress description latest_action_action…¹ latest_action_text
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <date> <chr>
#> 1 PN1293 118 Robin Michelle M… 2024-06-20 Cloture motion pr…
#> 2 PN830 118 Patricia L. Lee,… 2024-06-20 Cloture motion pr…
#> 3 PN1355 118 Charles J. Willo… 2024-06-20 Cloture motion pr…
#> 4 PN1343 118 Stephanie Sander… 2024-06-20 Confirmed by the …
#> 5 PN1851 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 6 PN1847 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 7 PN1850 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 8 PN1842 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 9 PN1849 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 10 PN1848 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 11 PN1847 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 12 PN1805 118 Karla M. Campbel… 2024-06-20 Committee on the …
#> 13 PN1807 118 Mary Kay Lanthie… 2024-06-20 Committee on the …
#> 14 PN1842 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 15 PN1808 118 Julia M. Lipez, … 2024-06-20 Committee on the …
#> 16 PN1850 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 17 PN1806 118 Catherine Henry,… 2024-06-20 Committee on the …
#> 18 PN1461 118 Nancy L. Maldona… 2024-06-20 Cloture invoked i…
#> 19 PN1849 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> 20 PN1851 118 <NA> 2024-06-20 Received in the S…
#> # ℹ abbreviated name: ¹latest_action_action_date
#> # ℹ 8 more variables: nomination_type_is_civilian <chr>, number <chr>,
#> # organization <chr>, part_number <chr>, received_date <date>,
#> # update_date <dttm>, url <chr>, nomination_type_is_military <chr>
Supported Endpoints:
This package is designed for v3 of the Congress.gov API. It currently supports the following endpoints:
- bills with
cong_bill() - amendments with
cong_amendment() - summaries with
cong_summaries() - congresses with
cong_congress() - members with
cong_member() - committees with
cong_committee() - committee reports with
cong_committee_report() - committee prints with
cong_committee_print() - committee meetings with
cong_committee_meeting() - Congressional Records with
cong_record() - Daily Congressional Records with
cong_daily_record() - Bound Congressional Records with
cong_bound_record() - House communications with
cong_house_communication() - Senate communications with
cong_senate_communication() - nominations with
cong_nomination() - treaties with
cong_treaty() - hearings with
cong_hearing()
Authentication
To sign up for an API key, visit the Congress.gov API sign-up website.
Once you have your key, you can set it in your environment as CONGRESS_KEY. You can:
- Add this directly to your
.Renvironfile with a line like so
CONGRESS_KEY='yourkey'
If doing this, I recommend using usethis::edit_r_environ() to ensure that you open the correct .Renviron file.
Set this in you current R session with
Sys.setenv(CONGRESS_KEY='yourkey').Set this using the
congress::set_congress_key()function. To save this for future sessions, run withinstall = TRUE.