The LedgerPublic Record
BooksThe BooksFloorThe FloorGavelThe GavelDeskThe DeskRaceThe Race
WatchlistPipelineVotesCommitteesMembers
The LedgerPublic Record

Five shelves of federal record. Pick a shelf, then dig in.

Archives refreshed Aug 7, 2026

The Books

  • Overview
  • Rankings
  • Map
  • Historical
  • Awards
  • Composition

The Floor

  • Overview
  • Watchlist
  • Pipeline
  • Votes
  • Members

The Gavel

  • Overview
  • Docket
  • Opinions
  • Justices

The Desk

  • Overview
  • Presidencies
  • Actions

The Race

  • Overview
  • Map
  • Presidency
  • Senate
  • House

Guides

  • Overview
  • Start here
  • Students
  • Reporters
  • Tools

Reference

  • Home
  • Definitions
  • Methodology
  • Data integrity
  • Status
  • Data cache
  • Data dictionary
  • Usage
  • Privacy
  • Contact
  • For AI agents

Free and open. No accounts. Privacy covers anonymous visit data only. Usage covers how to cite and reuse the archives. Contact uses a private form.

  1. Home
  2. ›The Floor
  3. ›Watchlist
  4. ›How It Works

The Floor

How The Floor works

The Floor follows Congress as lawmaking: a Congress.gov inventory for the current and previous Congress, a Featured Start-here overlay with full archives, a stage-by-stage pipeline, roll-call votes, committees, and member records.

Inventory vs Featured

Inventory rows cover bills introduced in the declared congresses (list-level titles, stages, and latest actions from Congress.gov). Featured bills keep the full package: summaries, sponsors, committees, CBO links, amendments, and archived roll calls.

Featured is a teaching overlay, not an official ranking. Search and the inventory table surface non-Featured bills.

How a bill moves

Pipeline stages track introduction, committee work, floor action, resolving differences, enrollment, presidential action, and law or veto. Dates appear when Congress.gov archives supply them.

A bill can stall for months. “Reached” on a stage means the archive saw evidence for that stage, not that the next stage is inevitable.

Votes and members

Roll calls on Featured bills feed the votes shelf and member profiles. Senate and House vote feeds differ in how they are published; methodology notes those limits.

Member pages aggregate votes from Featured bills. They are not a full career scorecard for every roll call ever taken.

What this path is not

The Floor stays federal. State legislatures and every amendment as a first-class shelf are out of scope. See methodology.

Related definitions

  • Featured / watchlist
  • Pipeline
  • Roll call
  • Veto

Explore

BillsPipelineVotesStart hereThe Floor hub
The Floor archives a Congress.gov bill inventory for Congress 118–119, with a Featured Start-here overlay for teaching and hubs. Stages, summaries, sponsors, and votes come from Library of Congress Congress.gov API, with Senate roll-call tallies from Senate.gov when available. Built 2026-08-07T16:51:45Z. Limits: methodology.