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How Congress funds the government, in plain English: the appropriations process, continuing resolutions, shutdowns, reconciliation, and every spending bill we track — sourced from bill text.

The rules Congress actually plays by, in plain English: how a bill becomes law, suspension of the rules, discharge petitions, the filibuster, cloture, vetoes, and how votes are recorded.

LegislationPatch tracks U.S. federal legislation and translates bill text into plain English — bill text and status from the Congress.gov API, floor statements from the Congressional Record on GovInfo, roll calls from the House Clerk and the Senate.

Where our data comes from, how we read a bill, the patch notes format, what we deliberately don't do, and the limits of our analysis.

Federal legislation is publicly available — but functionally inaccessible. The gap between availability and accessibility has real political consequences.

Federal bills follow a predictable structure. This guide explains each part — the enacting clause, section numbering, amendment language, and how to find what actually changed.

The textbook version leaves out most of what actually happens. The full picture — committees, holds, unanimous consent, reconciliation, and the presidential pen.

Most bills introduced in Congress never get a hearing, a vote, or any action. They die in committee. Here's how the committee system works and why it holds that much power.

The official record of House and Senate proceedings, published since 1873. What its four sections contain, what “revise and extend” actually permits, how much weight courts give a floor statement, and what our own quote stores do and do not record.

A bill's legislative stage tells you something meaningful about its odds of becoming law. Here's what each stage means — from committee referral through presidential signature.

H.R. 7296 would require documentary proof of citizenship to register and photo ID to vote in federal elections. Still in committee as of August 2026, but its text has been attached to two other bills; distinct from the SAVE Act, H.R. 22.

S. 1748 would impose a duty of care on online platforms used by minors. The Senate Commerce Committee ordered it reported with a substitute that has not been published; a predecessor package passed the Senate 91-3 in July 2024.

H.R. 8800, the FY2027 defense authorization bill, passed the House 216-212 on July 22, 2026, after a second rule cleared the way for it 214-211.

S. 2296, the FY2026 defense authorization bill, passed the Senate 77-20 on October 9, 2025 and was held at the desk in the House. It never became law: the FY2026 NDAA was enacted through a different vehicle, S. 1071, as Public Law 119-60.

H.R. 6509 would tighten federal oversight of drug compounding and set new limits on compounded copies of commercially available drugs. Still in committee as of August 2026, but the related Senate bill is on the Senate calendar.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act lapsed on June 12, 2026 — its first lapse since 2008. Complete tracker of every 2026 extension — bill text, votes, and how the authority ultimately lapsed.

S. 1884, signed April 13, 2026, permanently removed the procedural defenses U.S. courts had used to dismiss Holocaust art restitution claims without reaching the merits.

H.R. 7148 became Public Law 119-75 on February 3, 2026, carrying five of the twelve annual appropriations acts for fiscal year 2026 — days after a lapse in appropriations its own text records.

S. 3971, signed April 13, 2026, extended SBIR and STTR grant programs through FY2031 and added mandatory screening against eight federal watchlists for foreign adversary ties.

H.J.Res. 140, signed April 27, 2026, cancelled the BLM's 20-year mining ban on 225,504 acres of Minnesota National Forest bordering the Boundary Waters.

H.R. 1346 would allow year-round E15 sales by extending the E10 Reid Vapor Pressure waiver to E15, removing the current summer ozone-season prohibition.

H.R. 2319 would direct HHS to conduct an interagency review of lung cancer research gaps for women and underserved populations and report findings to Congress.

H.R. 6387 would require EPA to revise its exceptional events regulations within 18 months and extend them to prescribed burns and similar State approved wildfire mitigation. Sponsors say it shields communities from air-quality penalties they attribute to wildfire smoke; opponents say it would weaken the NAAQS program.

The complete roster of 119th Congress bills in our database on one page — every signed law, chamber passage, and failed vote, plus the funding and FISA deadlines to watch.

Section 702 has been reauthorized or extended six times since 2008. Complete history — every major action, what changed, and what the pattern reveals about the politics of surveillance reauthorization.

The CBO is Congress's nonpartisan scorekeeper for legislation — it estimates what bills cost and how they affect the deficit. Here's how to read a CBO score.

The filibuster allows any senator to block most legislation indefinitely. Overcoming it requires 60 votes. Here's how it works, why it exists, and what can bypass it.

A government shutdown occurs when Congress fails to pass appropriations legislation before funding lapses. Here's what shuts down, what stays open, and how they end.

Budget reconciliation allows the Senate to pass fiscal legislation with 51 votes instead of 60, bypassing the filibuster. Here's how it works and what its limits are.

The House Rules Committee controls which bills reach the floor, how long debate lasts, and what amendments are allowed. Its majority is appointed by the Speaker.

The President can reject legislation by returning it with objections. Congress can override with a two-thirds majority — a threshold that's rarely achieved.

A continuing resolution temporarily funds the government when regular appropriations haven't passed. Here's how CRs work and why they've become the default mode of federal budgeting.

Twelve annual appropriations bills fund the operations of most federal agencies, one per Appropriations subcommittee. All twelve have been enacted before the fiscal year started four times since FY1977, most recently for FY1997.

Cloture is the Senate's mechanism for ending unlimited debate and forcing a vote. It requires 60 senators and shapes everything that moves through the Senate.

Congressional oversight is Congress's power to investigate, subpoena, and review executive branch conduct. Here's what tools Congress has and what its limits are.

Signing statements explain how the President will interpret a new law and sometimes signal which provisions won't be enforced. Here's their legal status and history.

Most Senate business moves through unanimous consent agreements rather than formal votes. Here's how UC works and what one objecting senator can do.

A pocket veto occurs when the President takes no action on a bill while Congress is adjourned. Unlike a regular veto, Congress cannot override it.

Not everything Congress passes is a bill. Joint resolutions, concurrent resolutions, and simple resolutions each carry different legal weight and serve different purposes.

Every measure Congress numbers carries a prefix that signals its type and whether it can become law. A legend for all eight measure types and how the numbers get assigned.

Most measures pass with no record of who voted for them. The difference between a voice vote and a roll call, and what "agreed to by voice vote" means for the public record.

The Congressional Review Act lets Congress overturn a federal agency rule through a joint resolution of disapproval, using an expedited Senate procedure that cannot be filibustered.

A discharge petition lets 218 House members force a bill out of committee and onto the floor over the objection of leadership. How the threshold works and how often it succeeds.

The Impoundment Control Act sets the rules for when the executive can withhold appropriated funds — rescissions, deferrals, the 45-day clock, the GAO's role, and the disputed pocket rescission.

Suspension of the rules lets the House pass a bill with 40 minutes of debate, no amendments, and a two-thirds vote of the Members voting. What House Rule XV says, which days it is allowed, and what changed in the 119th Congress.

An omnibus carries several of the twelve annual appropriations bills in one measure, a minibus carries only some of them, and a continuing resolution carries none. What the terms mean, how the divisions work, and which bills in our database are which.

Every member quote is verbatim from the Congressional Record on GovInfo, or it is discarded. Here is the extraction process, the speaker-matching rules, and what provenance each of our two quote stores actually keeps.

Vote data comes directly from the House Clerk and Senate official records, matched to members by bioguide ID in the House and by surname and state in the Senate, with crossover detection on close-margin votes.

How the site is structured so any claim on it can be traced back to its source — verbatim floor quotes, schema.org markup on every article and bill page, and the bill version an analysis was actually written against.

No editorial spin is easy to say and harder to execute. Here's what it means in practice — what we describe, what we don't, and where the line sits between neutral description and political framing.