Follow the flow › Step 8 of 16 · Voting path
8. Committee review
A committee is a small group of members who study one topic, like money, farms, or the military. They hold hearings, ask experts questions, change the bill's words (this is called markup), and vote on whether to send it to the full chamber. Most of the real work happens here.
Who holds the money or the vote here?
The committee chair decides what gets a hearing; committee members vote.
How often does it happen?
Whenever the committee meets during session.
Where the records come from
Federal data is the same for everyone. When you pick a state, the state and local rows are the places to look for your state. "Have now" means PSI Sci already collects it; "Planned" means we list the source but do not collect it yet.
| Level | Source | Format | How often | On PSI Sci |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Federal | Congress.gov committees; House and Senate committee websites | page/API | daily | Planned |
| Federal | Bill actions show "reported by committee" (GovInfo BILLSTATUS) part of fed-bills | bulk XML | daily | Have now |
| State | State legislature committee pages (Open States) | API | daily in session | Planned |
| County | (county boards usually act as a whole; some have committees) | page | each meeting | Planned |
| City | City council committees | page/PDF | each meeting | Planned |
| District | Committees your member sits on | API | as changed | Planned |
| ZIP | (use your district) | - | - | Not used |
See these sources as searchable records (rendered live).
See it on PSI Sci now
Variable names
| Variable | Federal | State | County | City | District | ZIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
committee_id | committee_id | committee_id | committee_id | committee_id | committee_id | committee_id |
committee_vote | fed_committee_vote | st_committee_vote | cnty_committee_vote | cty_committee_vote | dist_committee_vote | zip_committee_vote |
hearing_date | fed_hearing_date | st_hearing_date | cnty_hearing_date | cty_hearing_date | dist_hearing_date | zip_hearing_date |
markup_date | fed_markup_date | st_markup_date | cnty_markup_date | cty_markup_date | dist_markup_date | zip_markup_date |
reported_date | fed_reported_date | st_reported_date | cnty_reported_date | cty_reported_date | dist_reported_date | zip_reported_date |
IDs (like bioguide_id, bill_id, piid, zcta) have no prefix because they already say what they point to.