Help
The U. S. House of Representatives provides access to committee documents and text
of legislation being considered in committee and by the House to the congressional
community and the general public via docs.house.gov. Documents are made available
in accordance with the rules of the House of Representatives and standards adopted by the Committee on House Administration.
Although various formats are utilized, not all have been or will be authenticated
by the Government Printing Office.
- Q. What is available on docs.house.gov?
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A. Text of legislation that may be considered on the House Floor is posted on docs.house.gov.
Committee documents in accordance with the standards adopted by the Committee on
House Administration are posted on docs.house.gov.
If available, both the PDF version and XML version of a document are posted. Documents
follow the House's document naming convention. If the documents have
been processed by U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), there may be direct links
to GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDSys).
- Q. I have a question about one of the documents on docs.house.gov. Whom should I
contact?
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A. The Majority Leader’s office and the Committee on Rules provide the content for
the “Bills to be considered on the House Floor” section. For inquiries, please contact
the Majority Leader’s office at 202-225-4000.
The standing and select committees of the House provide the content for the “committee
repository” section. Content is this section is organized by committee. Each committee
is responsible for posting their committee’s material. For inquiries, please contact
the committee. Links to each committee website with contact information can be found
on http://www.house.gov/committees/.
Legal Status & Authenticity of the XML files on docs.house.gov
- Q. Are XML files digitally signed?
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A. No, XML files available for download are not digitally signed. They can be manipulated
and enriched to operate in the various applications that users may devise.
- Q. What does the term “digitally signed” mean?
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A. Currently, GPO uses digital signature technology on PDF documents to add a visible
Seal of Authenticity (a graphic of an eagle) to authenticated and certified documents.
The technology allows GPO to secure data integrity, and provide users with assurance
that the content is unchanged since it was disseminated by GPO. A signed and certified
document also displays a blue ribbon icon to the left of the Seal of Authenticity
and in the Signatures tab within Adobe Acrobat or Reader. When users print a document
that has been signed and certified by GPO, the Seal of Authenticity will automatically
print on the document, but the blue ribbon will not print. Some documents on docs.house.gov
have not been processed by GPO and therefore, do not contain the visible Seal of
Authenticity.
- Q. What is the authenticity of data files from docs.house.gov after they have been
downloaded to another site?
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A. We cannot vouch for the authenticity of data that is not under the control of
the U.S. House. The U.S. House does not endorse third party applications, and does
not evaluate how our original content is displayed on other sites. Consumers should
form their own conclusions as to whether the downloaded data can be relied upon
within an application or its enriched results that were not necessarily the original
reason for producing the raw source data.
Information for re-publishers and third party data users
XML Description
Bills This Week
An XML file for each week is available for the “Bills to be considered on the House
Floor” section of docs.house.gov. This XML is well-formed. The elements and attributes
are self-describing.
Committee Repository
An XML file for each meeting is available in the “committee repository” section
of docs.house.gov. The XML is well-formed. The elements and attributes are self-describing.
The <current-status> element describes the status
of the meeting and it can contain one of the following values:
- S = scheduled
- R = rescheduled
- P = postponed (and not yet rescheduled)
- C = cancelled
Bill, Resolution, and Amendment documents
The XML for Bills, Resolutions, and Amendment documents posted in both sections
of docs.house.gov adhere to the Legislative Branch Exchange Document Type Definitions
(DTDs) as described on http://xml.house.gov.
XML files in this format are also available on GPO’s FDSys and the Library of Congress
(LOC) websites.
The style sheet used to display the XML is maintained by the Government Printing
Office and is managed by the Legislative Branch XML Working Group. It is the same
style sheet that is used to display these type of files on GPO’s FDSys and the LOC
websites.