How to Track US Legislation and Congress

1. Bookmark these sites:.
   Thomas, maintained by the Library of Congress, provides legislative information to the public (and to Congress). The most useful features are:
   Lookup any bill to learn what it is about, its status and sponsors.
   Links to the House of Representatives and the Senate.


2. Govtrack - a non partisan resource for tracking Congressional activity. Its most useful feature is sending alerts for any area of interest.


3. Congress.org - a generic advocacy site. Includes posts by individuals and advocacy groups.


4. USA.gov - main portal to US government agencies, services, etc.
   Find your Representative and Senators. On Govtrack, click on Members of Congress and enter a US zip code. You'll be given the names of your two Senators and Representative as well as a map of the congressional district. You can also get a full list of members of the House and Senate. Keep the address and phone numbers handy when an important issue comes up. News reports sometimes say that phones are ringing off the hook in congressional offices.
   Go to the web sites of your Senators and Representative. Sign up for their newsletters to find out what they think is important. You'll also find out which committees they are on.
   


5. Find out what committees your Representative and Senators are on. They are listed on Govtrack as well as the member's site. Often one of the three will sit on a committee that covers your area of interest.


6. Track what's going on in the House this week. Both major political parties have a whip who posts a notice of bills appearing for a floor vote that week along with a one line summary.


7. Democratic Whip - click on The Daily Whipline.


8. Republican Whip - click on Daily Whipping Post - Full Notice.


9. Track what's going on in the House today. Click on the Office of the Clerk - Legislative Activities to get a nearly real time summary of actions on the House floor.


10. Find active legislation by topic for both the Senate and House. This page provides the bill number for legislation currently in the pipeline or that has become public law ("P.L.").


11. Find the status of a bill. On the Thomas site, enter the bill number, such as HR 100. A more sophisticated query can be entered here.


12. Learn what the committees are doing. Click for the House or Senate. The real work in Congress gets done in the committees. Tracking the activities of committees also:
    Lets you know what's in the pipeline before the final vote.
    In many cases you can send a letter to the committee, which at least gets published as part of their proceedings. For example, the House Ways and Means committee posted witness testimony and citizen submissions for a 2006 hearing on Health Savings Accounts.
    Watch CSPAN broadcasts of major events - debates and votes in the House and Senate, committee hearings, press conferences, etc.


13. Get email alerts on issues important to you. Sign up for the Vote Monitor weekly newsletter or on Govtrack


14. Craft your message so the Senator or Representative will listen.
    Post a note to your Representative or Senator. Senators and Representatives make it easy to post messages by their constituents. They likely prefer posts because of security issues with email and snail mail.


15. Call your Senators and Representative. Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and give them your zip code. They'll find who represents you and connect the call to the right office. See tips below for how to find a toll free number to the Capitol Switchboard.
    Find Special interest groups on the internet.


16. Go to Votesmart.org, select a senator or representative and click on Interest Group Ratings. This will ultimately lead you to the interest groups for your issues of interest, and links to their websites. You can also use a search engine with a bill number (e.g. "HR 1234") or a phrase related to issues of interest.


17. Track rollcall votes. You need to know the date or the vote number to find how people voted, but you can also get information from Congress.org.