Decoding Congress: Tools and Tips for Reading Legislative Bills

A Hacker News discussion was sparked by a user's frustration with the difficulty of reading congressional bills obtained from congress.gov. The original poster found the provided text format poorly structured and the XML version not human-readable, specifically when trying to examine the "Big Beautiful Bill." This ignited a conversation about available tools, desired features, and the inherent complexities of legislative documents.

The Challenge with Official Bill Formats

The core problem highlighted is the inaccessibility of legislative texts in their raw, official formats. The fixed-column text files are cumbersome, and the machine-readable XML, while structured, isn't designed for direct human consumption. This opacity makes it difficult for citizens to engage with and understand the laws being proposed and passed.

Existing Platforms for Better Readability

Several platforms and tools were recommended to address these challenges:

• GovTrack.us: Joshua Tauberer (joshdata), the founder of GovTrack, chimed in to address the OP's temporary difficulty accessing the site. He showcased GovTrack's features, such as automatic linking to U.S. Code, richer formatting than congress.gov (for some bills), and the ability to perform diff-like comparisons between bill versions. The project is open source, and Tauberer invited contributions and feedback.
• congress.dev: Suggested by a commenter, this site was praised for its clear display of bill differences (diffs), which is crucial for understanding amendments and changes. Its pleasant font and readability were also noted.
• Easy Congress: An iOS app developer shared their app for reading and following bills, though it was experiencing a temporary issue with the specific bill in question.
• DogeAI.chat: Mentioned by multiple users as a leading tool, leveraging AI to help understand bills. It is also open source.
• Congressional Rag: A new community project (congressionalrag.com) was shared, seeking collaborators to expand its data sources.

Technical Approaches and Data Sources

For those with technical skills, various resources and methods were discussed:

• United States Congress GitHub Repo (unitedstates/congress): This repository was lauded as an excellent starting point for accessing comprehensive bill data, including votes, attachments, and format documentation. joshdata also mentioned his involvement in this project.
• Govinfo.gov Bulk Data: Commenters pointed to govinfo.gov for bulk data resources, including XSLT stylesheets (billres.xsl) that can transform the official XML into more readable HTML, similar to the PDF versions.
• Direct XML Parsing and Styling: One user (beej71) detailed their experience attempting to parse the XML, noting its near-XHTML structure but ultimate invalidity. They provided a practical tip: wrap the XML content with a basic HTML boilerplate and some CSS to significantly improve readability in a browser.

The Role of AI and LLMs

The potential of Large Language Models (LLMs) to make bills more accessible was a significant topic:

• Summarization and Interpretation: The idea of pasting bill text into an LLM to get summaries or explanations of dense legal language was proposed. Users acknowledged the risk of LLM hallucinations and emphasized the need to always refer back to the source text.
• Improved Accessibility vs. Accuracy: Proponents argued that even imperfect AI summaries could be more helpful than relying on partisan interpretations or struggling with intractable documents. The hope is that AI could make the information more 'tractable' and initiate a public fact-checking loop.
• Moderation and Trust: Concerns were raised about the moderation of AI-generated content or user annotations on bills, and the potential for non-technical users to implicitly trust AI outputs without understanding their limitations.

Desired Features and Community Ideas

• Annotation Layer: A Genius.com-style annotation layer for bills was a popular suggestion. However, the moderation overhead for user-generated content was cited as a significant hurdle by joshdata. A counter-suggestion involved individual, non-shared annotation systems to bypass this issue.

Why Bills Are Hard to Read

Commenters also touched upon the reasons for the complexity of legislative texts:

• Prose Diffs: Many bills are written as amendments to existing laws (e.g., "In section X, strike 'ABC' and insert 'XYZ'"), making them like 'wordy patches' that are hard to understand without the original context.
• Formatting Conventions: The specific formatting marks in PDFs indicating additions or deletions can be obscure and vary by jurisdiction.
• Legal Thoroughness & Lack of Review: Bills are legal documents requiring precision, often drafted by staff rather than legislators themselves, and may not undergo rigorous public review for readability.

A Note on Data Accessibility Efforts

A brief discussion arose about the history of making congressional information public. joshdata provided a nuanced perspective, noting that efforts have been relatively bipartisan over the years, involving both political figures and dedicated nonpolitical staff, rather than being solely driven by one party.

In conclusion, the discussion highlighted a clear public need for better tools to access and understand congressional bills. While official sources provide the raw data, community-driven projects, dedicated platforms, and emerging AI technologies are playing a crucial role in bridging the gap between complex legislative text and citizen comprehension. The challenges, however, remain significant, stemming from the inherent complexity of the data and the resources required to process and present it effectively.