Bill Commons

Search Legislation

Search FULL BILL TEXT -- not just known-bill-number lookup. `q` is matched against titles, descriptions, AND ingested document text via Postgres websearch_to_tsquery (supports "quoted phrases", OR, and -exclusion, same syntax as a search engine), with a fuzzy pg_trgm title-similarity fallback when the exact query has no hits. `q` can ALSO be a bill number ("HB 123", "H.B. 123", "hb123" all match) and that fast path is tried first. Optionally filter by jurisdiction (tw

Get Bill Record

Fetch the full record for one bill: metadata, sponsors, subjects, actions, versions, and vote-event summaries. Look up by canonical bill_id (UUID), or by jurisdiction + identifier (+ optional session to disambiguate).

Compare Bill Versions

Deterministic diff (unified + structured) between two versions of a bill's extracted text. Defaults to earliest vs. latest texted version if version ids are omitted. Errors if fewer than 2 versions have extracted text. Result is labeled 'derived' (computed by Bill Commons, not an official document).

Find Similar Bills

Find bills with similar titles via deterministic trigram similarity, across jurisdictions. Labeled 'derived' -- not an official cross-reference or companion-bill designation.

Get Vote Details

Fetch vote event(s) with member-level (yes/no/other/absent) vote records. Provide vote_event_id for one vote, or bill_id for all recorded votes on that bill.

Get Upcoming Hearings

List upcoming (future-dated) legislative hearings/events, optionally filtered by jurisdiction and/or bill.

Trace Legislative History

Full chronological legislative history for a bill: merged timeline of actions, version publications, and votes, plus related-bill links.

Build Legislative Evidence Packet

Compile a citation-ready evidence packet for a bill: full official record, legislative history timeline, votes with member-level detail, and hearings -- each explicitly labeled official vs. derived with source URLs. Returns a `how_to_cite` block with a one-line `cite_as` sentence, a human `permalink`, a JSON `download_url`, and a `snapshot_id` that changes if and only if a cited fact about the bill changes -- so a reader can check later whether the citation still holds.

Get Jurisdiction Coverage

Return the jurisdiction_coverage state-machine status for one state (abbreviation or name), or the full 51-jurisdiction coverage matrix if state is omitted.

Get Active Sessions

List legislative sessions currently flagged active, optionally filtered by jurisdiction (two-letter state code or name).

List Topics

List Bill Commons' curated cross-state topic trackers (e.g. artificial intelligence, youth online safety, platform accountability, cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, data privacy, local government & preemption) -- the entry point for "what subjects does Bill Commons track across all 50 states + DC" and "how do I get every bill in one". Each topic is a title/subject membership rule tuned for precision over recall, with a live bill_count and how_to_fetch_bills. This tool does