December 2020 Congress.gov New, Tip and Top | In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians of Congress

Last month, Robert introduced us to the new Congress.gov Help Center. As part of this month’s release, we have made additional improvements to Help Center search results navigation. Now users can navigate through their search results or return to the results page.

Help Center search navigation results

The other enhancement to the Help Center is the improved Error Message page which includes suggestions of other relevant Help pages and other tools.

Help Center Improved Error Message page with suggestions

The final enhancement we want to highlight in this month’s release is the addition of bound Congressional Record volumes from the 85th (1957) to the 93rd (1974) Congresses. These volumes can be searched and search results can be filtered using various parameters:

Additional Years for the Bound Congressional Record

Enhancements

Enhancement – Help Center – Search Results Navigation

Help pages reached via a search include arrows to allow you to move through your results easily or to return to the results list.

Enhancement – Help Center – Improved Error Message

Help links and contact information are listed on the “Page Not Found” error page.

Enhancement – Bound Congressional Record – Additional Congresses

The Bound Congressional Record has been added for the 85^th – 93^rd Congresses (1957-1974).

Enhancement – House Rules Committee Prints – Related Legislation

Committee prints issued by the House Committee on Rules display related legislation in search results and in the overview of the committee print.
Legislation displays House Committee on Rules committee prints in the overview and on the related bills tab.
This feature is available for 116^th Congress committee prints now and will be added to previous Congresses in the future.

Search Tip

Citation Format for Searching All Legislation

When searching All Legislation, a citation format that works well for finding a specific bill or law is this sequence: congress number and citation in a single string.

Examples:

S.25 [113] = 113s25

Public Law 109-25 = 109pl25

Most-Viewed Bills

These are the most-viewed bills for the week of December 6, 2020, all of which are from the current Congress, the 116th.

1.	H.R.3884	MORE Act of 2019
2.	S.386	Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019
3.	H.R.1044	Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2020
4.	S.2227	MORE Act of 2019
5.	H.Res.1244	Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 3884) to decriminalize and deschedule cannabis, to provide for reinvestment in certain persons adversely impacted by the War on Drugs, to provide for expungement of certain cannabis offenses, and for other purposes.
6.	H.R.748	CARES Act
7.	S.945	Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act
8.	H.R.6800	The Heroes Act
9.	S.3548	CARES Act
10.	H.R.6395	National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021

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