NEWS.md

In congress: Access the Congress.gov API

congress 0.1.0

• Addresses changes in January 2024-May 2025 API changes (#22,#23,#24,#25,#26,#27,#28,#29,#30,#31,#32,#33,#34,#35,#36,#37,#38,#39)
• Checks that all upstream updates did not impact auto-unlisting functions.
• Adds support for item = 'summaries' in cong_bill()
• Adds support for item = 'text' in cong_amendment()
• Adds support for searching members by congress or state (and district) in cong_member()
• Adds support for searching members by current status in cong_member()
• Adds new cong_law() function to use the law endpoint.
• Adds new cong_crs_report() function to use the crs-report endpoint.
• Adds new (experimental) House vote function cong_house_vote().
• Improves support for date time formats across the board
• Fixes too aggressive processing in cong_bill() (#21)

congress 0.0.4

• When clean = TRUE, the json version will be downloaded and used to clean the object (#17).
• cong_reports() did not fully rectangularize the data. This has been fixed (#18).

congress 0.0.3

New features

• When clean = TRUE, a new attribute is added (response_info) which provides pagination and request information.
• When clean = TRUE, date and datetime columns are now converted automatically to the correct types.
• Adds cong_request_next() function which requests the next set of results. This can be piped from the last response, such as cong_bill() |> cong_request_next() to row bind the results.

Upstream API Updates

• Addresses changes in December 2023 API changes (#16)

• cong_amendment() can take item = 'text' for congress <= 117 and warns otherwise.

• Addresses changes in October 2023 API changes (#15)

• No changes necessary within congress package. All changes upstream automatically handled.

• Addresses changes in October 2023 API changes (#14)

• No changes necessary within congress package. All changes upstream automatically handled.

• Addresses changes in September 2023 API changes (#13)

• All inputs are internally coerced to lowercase before being passed to the API. This excludes cong_treaty() which has case-sensitive suffixes.

• Addresses changes in August 2023 API changes (#12)

• Adds cong_bound_record() to access new bound-congressional-record API endpoint.

• Addresses changes in July 2023 API changes (#11)

• Adds cong_daily_record() to access new daily-congressional-record API endpoint.

• Addresses changes in June 2023 API changes (#10)

• No changes necessary within congress package. All changes upstream automatically handled.

• Addresses changes in May 2023 API changes (#9)

• Supports new item endpoint within cong_house_requirement()

• Renames (internal) cong_house_communication() endpoint when number is provided. This is due to an upstream change from house-communication to houseCommunication.

• Addresses changes in March 2023 API changes (#7)

• Adds cong_hearing() to access new hearing API endpoint.
• Adds cong_committee_meeting() to access new committee-meeting API endpoint.
• Adds cong_committee_print() to access new committee-print API endpoint.

Bug fixes

• Resolves a bug in cong_senate_communication() where providing number would return an empty tibble.
• Resolves a bug in cong_member() where rows would be duplicated if bioguide was provided.
• Resolves a bug in cong_amendment() where rows would be duplicated if item was provided.
• Resolves a bug in cong_bill() where some rows were (sometimes) duplicated if item was provided.

Deprecated functions

• Removes cong_communication() (Deprecated in 0.0.2) in favor of cong_house_communication().

congress 0.0.2

• Resolves a bug in cong_bill() where item = 'text' would return an empty tibble.

• Addresses changes in February 2023 API changes (#6)

• Allows for house-communication and senate-communication items in cong_committee().
• Passes on format to cong_senate_communication() for returned data in committees list-column.

• Additional bug fixes in upstream API, which may slightly modify columns in cong_member(), cong_committee(), and cong_amendment(). These changes were automatically handled in version 0.0.1 since February 2023.

• Addresses changes in January 2023 API changes (#4) and (#5)

• Upstream API changes allow for full coverage of MCs for cong_member().

• Upstream API changes let cong_bill() include CBO estimates. These changes were automatically handled in version 0.0.1 since January 2023.

• Addresses changes in December 2022 API changes (#3).

• Adds cong_house_requirement() to access new house-requirement API endpoint.

• Addresses changes in November 2022 API changes (#1) and (#2).

• cong_communication() is deprecated in favor of cong_house_communication(), as a new senate endpoint was added. This can be accessed via cong_senate_communication().
• Returned columns are slightly modified for cong_nomination(), cong_committee_report(), and cong_nomination(). These changes were automatically handled in version 0.0.1 since November 2022.

congress 0.0.1

• Added a NEWS.md file to track changes to the package.
• Initial release, with functional API for beta version endpoints.

congress documentation built on Sept. 2, 2025, 9:08 a.m.