Amendments

Data on amendments in Congress goes back to 2009, and comes from THOMAS.gov via scrapers at the github.com/unitedstates project. Feel free to open a ticket with any bugs or suggestions.

Methods

All requests require a valid API key, and use the domain:

https://congress.api.sunlightfoundation.com

/amendments

Filter through amendments in Congress. Filter by any fields below that have a star next to them. All standard operators apply.

Senate amendments in the 113th Congress

/amendments?chamber=house&congress=113

Amendments sponsored by the House Rules Committee

/amendments?sponsor_type=committee&sponsor_id=HSRU

Amendments of CISPA, H.R. 624

/amendments?amends_bill_id=hr624-113

Fields

Many fields are not returned unless requested. You can request specific fields with the fields parameter. See the partial responses documentation for more details.

* = can be used as a filter

{
  "amendment_id": "hamdt10-113",
  "amendment_type": "hamdt",
  "number": 10,
  "congress": 113,
  "chamber": "house",
  "house_number": 8,
  "introduced_on": "2013-01-15",
  "last_action_at": "2013-01-15T22:27:00Z"
}

* amendment_id
The unique ID for this amendment. Formed from the amendment_type, number, and congress.

* amendment_type
The type for this amendment. For the amendment “H.Amdt. 10”, the amendment_type represents the “H.Amdt.” part. Amendment types can be either hamdt or samdt.

* number
The number for this amendment. For the amendment “H.Amdt. 10”, the number is 10.

* congress
The Congress in which this amendment was introduced. For example, amendments introduced in the “113th Congress” have a congress of 113.

* chamber
The chamber in which the amendment was introduced.

* house_number
If the amendment was introduced in the House, this is a relative amendment number, scoped to the bill or treaty the House it relates to. How this number gets assigned is complicated and involves multiple institutions within the House and the Library of Congress. You can read the gory details if you want, but this number will usually do the job of connecting to data from the House Clerk’s Electronic Voting System.

* introduced_on
The date this amendment was introduced.

* last_action_at
The date or time of the most recent official action on the amendment. Often, there are no official actions, in which case this field will be set to the value of introduced_on.

What it Amends

{
  "amends_amendment_id": "hamdt5-113",
  "amends_amendment": {
    "amendment_id": "hamdt5-113",
    "congress": 113,
    "number": 5
    ...
  },
  "amends_bill_id": "hr152-113",
  "amends_bill": {
    "bill_id": "hr152-113",
    "bill_type": "hr",
    "chamber": "house"
    ...
  }
}

An amendment will relate to either a bill or a treaty. An amendment can either amend a bill or treaty directly, or it can amend an amendment that amends a bill.

* amends_bill_id
If this amendment relates to a bill, this field is the ID of the related bill.

amends_bill
If this amendment relates to a bill, some basic details about that related bill.

* amends_treaty_id
If this amendment relates to a treaty, this field is the ID of the related treaty. Treaty IDs are of the form treatyX-Y, where X is the treaty’s number, and Y is the Congress the treaty is being considered in.

* amends_amendment_id
If this amendment amends an amendment, this field is the ID of the amended amendment.

amends_amendment
If this amendment amends an amendment, some basic details about that amended amendment.

{
  "sponsor_type": "person",
  "sponsor_id": "B000574",
  "sponsor": {
    "bioguide_id": "B000574",
    "birthday": "1948-08-16",
    "chamber": "house"
    ...
  }
}

Unlike bills, amendments can be sponsored by either a person or a committee.

* sponsor_type
Whether the amendment is sponsored by a “person” or a “committee”.

* sponsor_id
If the sponsor_type is “person”, this will be that legislator’s bioguide ID. If the sponsor_type is “committee”, this will be that committee’s ID.

sponsor
If the sponsor_type is “person”, some basic details about that person. If the sponsor_type is “committee”, some basic details about that committee.

Description and Purpose

{
  "purpose": "An amendment numbered 6 printed in Part C of House Report 113-1 to clarify that the Corps of Engineers...",
  "description": "Amendment to clarify that the Corps of Engineers..."
}

Amendments can have a purpose and a description. It’s not clear why there are two separate fields. When both are available, the purpose has slightly more information, but that information may be procedural and not relevant to the content of the amendment, as in the example above.

Amendments can have neither of these two fields (very common), or only a purpose (common), or only a description (common), or neither (very rare). You can read further discussion if you’re interested.

Actions

Actions on an amendment are identical to actions on bills. Please refer to the documentation on bill actions for examples and details.