About
About BillTracking
BillTracking is an independent project that publishes a live, source-linked record of lawmaking in the United States Congress and the European Union, through two automated feeds and this site. It's run independently by one person, not an institution, and it earns nothing — no sponsors, no advertisers, and nothing anyone can pay us to post.
The idea
The record deserves a feed
Democracies record everything their legislatures do — and then publish it in databases most citizens will never open. The gap between public and accessible is where BillTracking sits: software that reads the official record continuously and republishes it, step by step, in the places people actually read, in language that doesn't require a law degree.
The project's bet is long and unglamorous: that consistency, accuracy and completeness over years — not speed, not hot takes — is what makes a source worth citing. News will always break stories first. The feeds do something different: they are the reference you check the story against.
Why X?
Because that's where the conversation about legislation actually happens. Journalists, congressional and parliamentary staff, policy academics and engaged citizens argue about lawmaking on X in real time — and a record is most useful in the room where the argument is. Posting the official record into that conversation means a claim can be checked the moment it's made, not after it's been retweeted for a day.
We know the platform has critics. That's part of why this site exists: billtracking.org is the platform-independent home of the project, and if enough readers want the feeds mirrored elsewhere, we'll listen — tell us at contact@billtracking.org.
How it works
From the record to your feed
- Read the record. Software polls the official sources — the Congress.gov API for the US feed; the European Parliament's open-data service, the EU Publications Office's Cellar database and the OEIL Legislative Observatory for the EU feed.
- Classify the step. Each new action in the record is matched against a model of the legislative process — passed the House; cloture failed; trilogue mandate agreed; published in the Official Journal. Actions the system can't confidently place are logged and skipped, never guessed (see Accuracy).
- Compose the post. Fixed templates state the action in the record's own terms, with dates and vote numbers verbatim, plus an honest "what's next". AI is used for one thing only: the optional plain-English summary of what a bill would do — always labeled [AI-Generated].
- Post, and stand behind it. Errors are corrected visibly and logged publicly. Every post can be traced back to its official source by anyone.
Who is behind it
Independence, funding, and the .org question
BillTracking is built and run by one person, independently. It is an independent project that earns nothing today, and it will never be funded by charging you. The feeds and this site are free and will stay free to read; there is no premium tier, no institutional license, and no data collection business behind it. No sponsors, no advertisers, no paid placements: the posts are generated by software from the official record, so there is no editorial desk to buy.
Why a .org domain, then? Because .org fits what the site is for — a public-facing civic resource — and carries no legal restriction to nonprofits. Rather than let the domain imply anything, we say it outright: this is an independent project, not an "organization", an institute, or an official body. There is no team page because there is no team to inflate — it is a small operation, and pretending otherwise would cut against the one asset that matters here: being exactly what it says it is.
Not affiliated: BillTracking has no connection to, and no endorsement from, the United States Congress, the Library of Congress, the European Union or any of its institutions, or any government body. It republishes their public records, with attribution, under their open-data terms.
Contact
General: contact@billtracking.org
Error reports: accuracy@billtracking.org —
see how corrections work.