Common Tasks

Recipes you can copy directly

Use these examples to move from a first request to a working integration: listing bills, fetching detailed records with includes, inspecting committee activity, and pulling vote roll calls. Exact route definitions live in Reference.

Start small, then expand
Most integrations should begin with a lean list request, then move into detail requests with include= only where it reduces follow-up calls.

Common tasks

These examples cover the common workflows LegiList is designed to handle well: normalized federal records, direct links between related objects, and fewer stitching calls than raw upstream sources.

List recent bills in one Congress

Start with the bill list and keep the first request small. Then follow next_url until you have the window you need.

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  "https://legilist.com/api/v1/bills?congress=119&per_page=20"

Fetch one bill with actions, texts, and amendments

Use include= when you want the main bill plus action history, text versions, amendment metadata, related bills, enacted law links, and votes in one response.

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  "https://legilist.com/api/v1/bills/119/HR/1?include=actions,texts,amendments,related,laws,votes"

Find legislators by Congress and state

When you pass congress=, the party, state, chamber, and district fields reflect that term.

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  "https://legilist.com/api/v1/legislators?congress=119&state=NC&per_page=10"

Fetch a legislator with biography and terms

Use biography when you want a sourced narrative profile alongside current record data and term history.

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  "https://legilist.com/api/v1/legislators/A000370?include=biography,terms"

Inspect a committee with memberships

Add memberships when you want the committee and its members in one request.

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  "https://legilist.com/api/v1/committees/HSJU05?include=memberships"

List committee meetings for the current Congress

Committee activity subresources are current-Congress only. Use the meetings route for hearings, markups, witness counts, and official event links.

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  "https://legilist.com/api/v1/committees/SSJU00/meetings?per_page=5"

List committee nominations for the current Congress

Use the nominations route for current-Congress committee nominations, latest action text, and the public Congress.gov nomination page.

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  "https://legilist.com/api/v1/committees/SSFR00/nominations?per_page=5"

List laws and follow back to the bill

Law detail includes the linked bill, so you can move from the law back to the bill without extra stitching.

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  "https://legilist.com/api/v1/laws?congress=119&law_type=public&per_page=10"

Fetch a vote with roll-call results

Vote detail stays small by default. Add include=results only when you need the full roll call.

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  "https://legilist.com/api/v1/votes/119/1/house/304?include=results"

Browse a topic with paginated bills

Topic detail supports congress= filtering, keeps the bill list inside data, and returns pagination links in top-level meta.

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  "https://legilist.com/api/v1/topics/abandonment-of-family?congress=110&per_page=3"

Next step

If you need the exact parameters and route inventory behind these examples, use Reference. If you need the integration rules around authentication, pagination, and errors, use Docs.

Open Reference Back to Docs Create API Account