congressmcp

Connect Claude Desktop to US Congressional data - bills, amendments, members, committees, and more.

Installation

npm install -g congressmcp

Setup

Get your API key:
- Visit: https://congressmcp.lawgiver.ai
- Sign up for a free account
- Check your email for your API key
Configure local MCP client:

Add this to your config or cline_mcp_settings.json with your API key:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "congressmcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y", 
        "congressmcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "CONGRESSMCP_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop to activate the connection.

Usage

Ask Claude about:

Bills: "Search for recent climate bills"
Members: "Who represents California in the Senate?"
Committees: "What committees handle healthcare?"
Amendments: "Show amendments to HR 1234"
Roll Call Votes: "How did senators vote on the infrastructure bill?"
And much more legislative data!

Known Limitations

⚠️ Important Architectural Notice:

Currently, all users share a single Congress.gov API key on the backend server. This means:

Rate Limits: All users share the same 5,000 requests/hour quota from Congress.gov
Scalability: May hit rate limits with many concurrent users
Architecture: Not the ideal long-term solution

Planned Fix (v2.0): Future versions will require users to provide their own Congress.gov API key for individual rate limits and better scalability. This will require:

Obtaining a free Congress.gov API key at: https://api.congress.gov/sign-up/
Adding CONGRESS_GOV_API_KEY to your Claude config

Current Status: This limitation doesn't affect functionality for early users, but please be aware that heavy usage may experience rate limiting.

Subscription Tiers

FREE: All functions with 200 calls/month
PRO: $19/month, all functions with 5,000 calls/month
ENTERPRISE: Custom pricing, unlimited usage

Support

[email protected]