About Us
GovTrack.us tracks the activities of the United States Congress and the White House to create a more open and accountable government.
We publish the status of federal legislation and voting records, information and statistics about representative and senators in Congress, and news and commentary about official actions by Congress, the President, and the White House.
We’re one of the oldest open government / government transparency websites in the world.This is not a government website.
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What you can do on GovTrack
Use GovTrack to track bills for updates bygetting alerts and understand the broader context of legislation through ourstatistical analyses. Read our original research in ourlegislator misconduct database and weeklyposts on what’s coming up and what just happened in Congress.
We also added a newnewsletter about executive orders and other actions by the President and the White House.
You can read more aboutthe data we have, including how you can get it. GovTrack was the first to create comprehensive open data about Congress, and we have successfully lobbied Congress to make more and better legislative information available to the public.
Who we are
GovTrack.us is a project ofCivic Impulse, LLC, a completely independent entity which is wholly owned by its operator and receives no funding in any form from outside organizations. We have no financers, sponsors, investors, or partners, nor do we have any affiliation or relationship (financial or otherwise) with any political party, government agency, or any other outside group or persons, other than our subscribers and advertisers.
We pay our operating costs through our advertising revenue (read our ad policy) and crowdfunding (support us on Patreon; see our past Kickstarters in2015 and2025).
GovTrack.us began tracking the U.S. Congress in 2004 and inspired the world-wide open government and open government data movements. We havetestified before Congress multiple times about our work and how to make Congress a more open institution. In 2025 we began tracking the White House.
We’re a small organization with a few part-time staff members including:
 | Joshua Tauberer, president Joshua is the founder of GovTrack.us and created the site initially as a hobby in 2004. He is a software engineer and entrepreneur that has also been a contractor for the United States Congress and the District of Columbia municipal government on improving the publication process of the law. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. |
 | Amy West, research & communications manager Amy has been the GovTrack research and communications manager since February 2017 when she realized she didn't want to retire quite so early after all. She edits GovTrack Insider articles, posts to GovTrack social media and developed theCongressional Misconduct Database. From 1999-2015, she was a librarian at the University of Minnesota Libraries specializing in government publications and government data. |
Our Charter
1. GovTrack.us’s mission is to help Americans participate in their government.
a. We make information about the United States Congress and the actions of its senators, representatives, and delegates, and official actions by the President and the White House, accessible and actionable for voters, professionals, students, and others.
b. We do this by putting the information in context, tracking new developments, helping our users take meaningful action, and seeking out new information and new ways to analyze and explain that information.
2. We are committed to integrity.
a. We know that government decisions have grave consequences, and so we carry out our work respectfully and responsibly.
b. We strive to report what’s happening fairly and accurately. We won’t take sides on policies or politicians — except policies that further or hinder our mission as described in this charter.
c. We do not accept grants from or have any relationship with partisan organizations. Our advertising space is made available to advertisers without regard to political views.
3. We are committed to democracy.
a. We believe that transparency and education are crucial for achieving equity in rights and representation for all Americans.
b. We believe that the best outcomes can be achieved not only with an informed public but also with a government that has the capacity to make informed decisions.
d. We love the legislative branch (i.e., Congress). That’s why we think about it so much. Our federal government works best when Congress acts as a check on presidential power.
Our timeline
| 2004We launched!Bill status alerts by emailGovTrack launched in 2004 with our most fundamental feature: email alerts for legislation and lawmakers you care about.Ideology scoresOur first data analysis,Ideology Scores put legislators on a chart from conservative to liberal based on their sponsorship of legislation. | |
| 2005Downloadable raw dataIn support of other civic tech projects, we shared our downloadable data and, later, an API, for others to use to create new apps and research projects.Congressional district mapsIt was one of the first “Google Maps mashups” and the first interactive street-level map of congressional districts on the internet, our congressional district maps help you find your representative. (These days our maps use MapBox technology — thanks MapBox for the discount!) | |
| 2006Committee assignmentsOur early years were spent gathering more and more legislative information into one place, including legislators’ committee assignments. | |
| 2007Asked Congress for open dataWe went to the U.S. Capitol toask Congress for open legislative data. | |
| 2008Paragraph-level bill permalinksBills can be thousands of pages long — use our paragraph-level links, launched in 2008, to bring your followers directly to the part of the bill you care about (example).Compare bill versionsBills can change lots during the legislative process. We give you a way to see those changes.Here’s a comparison of the introduced and passed versions of the Pallone-Thune Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act. | |
| 2009It’s officialIn 2009, we formed Civic Impulse LLC, a company in the District of Columbia.Senate creates open data for voting recordsFollowing our path, the Senate began publishingopen data for votes. | |
| 2010Incorporated into theHouse Democrats’ intranetOur open data became a part of the House Democrats’ internal tool for keeping their caucus informed.VideosAs an experiment that ran from 2010-2013, we created some videos explaining legislative issues. However, videos turned out to be unfeasibly labor-intensive to make. | |
| 2012Advanced searchSearch by stage of the legislative process, or sponsor, or Congress, or a variety of other factors using ouradvanced search.PrognosisWebegan publishing estimates of thelikelihood of bill passage in 2012 using a novel methodology we invented. (Later, for some years, we published the scores ofSkopos Labs.) In 2016,Last Week Tonight with John Oliver mentioned it.Experimental state legislation trackingWe try lots of things, but they don’t always work out. It turned out that there’s just too much content and variation to realistically track all 50 states. We ended this feature in 2015.Link to laws referenced in billsWe began incorporating links to the U.S. Code and previously passed bills to simplify the process of understanding proposed bills. (example) | |
| 2013Legislator report cardsExtending the legislator statistics we started with in 2004, thereport cards are much more expansive and give a more nuanced view of each legislator.Original bill summariesWe began including the Library of Congress’s bill summaries in 2008, but we began writing our own in 2013. (example) We also included lightly edited summaries from the Republican Policy Committee from 2013-2018. Unfortunately, Democrats did not have a similar site to copy from, and the Republicans have stopped publishing theirs.1,000,000 users in a monthIn January 2013, 1 million users visited our site — a record.Seen on TV!The McLaughlin Group andThe Rachel Maddow Show both mentioned our work. | |
| 2015GovTrack InsiderAftera successful Kickstarter, we created an independent location for our writing about bills and related subjects. Our first article was about atrade bill. One of our most recent articles was aboutwho Congress nominates for Congressional Gold Medals.Legislator subject areasAt a user’s suggestion, we created legislator subject areas based on the bills they sponsor. They’re not always what you might expect. | |
| 2017Bill text incorporationSmaller bills areoften passed as part of larger packages. Tracing that path can be very difficult. This feature simplifies that process for you. It also lets us give legislators credit where due that would otherwise be hidden by procedure. Here’s a link toone bill which we show incorporates 89 other bills.Advocacy organization rankingsPeople often go to organizations that support their views to find out which politicians they believe work to their benefit. We’ve gathered a number of major advocacy organizations’ ratings of legislators so you can see them all together.Congressional Misconduct DatabaseCongress mostly polices itself and has done so since 1789. We have gathered what we believe is the only database of all instances ofCongressional Misconduct.Fact check goes nationalOur fact-check of President Trump’s bogus claim that he signed more legislation than anyone — in fact, it was the least — made national news.Four team membersIn 2017 we increased the size of our team to four regular team members.1,500,000 users in a monthIn January 2017, just under 1.5 million users visited our site and 9.7 million people visited our site that year — a record.End of our open dataHappily, we were able to retire our open data and API becauseCongress created their own and other organizations created similar APIs. | |
| 2018Pronunciation guidePerhaps you too had thought that former Rep. Goodlatte’s name was pronounced like the coffee drink. It is not. Our guide can be very helpful if you’re calling your representative for the first time!Our 500,000th registered userThe 500,000th person to sign up for email updates registered this year. | |
| 2019Testified before CongressOn May 10, 2019, GovTrack.us founder Joshua Tauberertestified before the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress on the subject of transparency.Bill study guidesEvery bill page now features a unique set of questions to help you understand the bill, under the “study guides” tab. These questions can be used in the classroom to guide discussion about a bill, or can be helpful templates for what to ask when you call your representatives.Impeachment.guideWe launched a spin-off siteImpeachment.guide to track the chronology and charges in the impeachment of President Trump. | |
| 2020Instagram videosWe joined Instagram (as@govtrack.us) and began posting videos in ourA Bill a Minute series.COVID-19 in CongressWe began trackingcases of COVID-19 in Congress.New functionalityThe enhanced bill cosponsors table shows relevant committee assignments. The site search box got autocomplete. Bill text is updated more often for bills before the House. | |
| 2021New functionalityThe bill cosponsors table got upgraded again with a new potential cosponsors table. We are also now linking to Statements of Administration policy, and our bill text incorporation analysis has been improved to find more bills that have been enacted through other legislation.We’re still doing itWe have posted more video summaries of legislation on Instagram, tracked more cases of COVID-19 in Congress and legislator misconduct, and updated our legislator name pronunciation guides. | |
| 2022MastodonWe moved our main social media account from Twitter to Mastodon. | |
| 2023EarmarksWe added earmark requests for FY24 from Demand Progress Education Fund to the legislator pages.TikTokWe posted our first TikTok. | |
| 2024New newsletter on upcoming legislation and the week’s legislative activityThis year we began a new twice-weekly newsletter on upcoming legislation and a wrap-up of the legislative week. | |
| 2025New newsletter tracking the White HouseWe began a new newsletter tracking official actions by the President and the White House. |
