CongressMCP

91+ congressional data tools for Claude, Cursor, VS Code, and any MCP client.

Access live U.S. Congressional data — bills, votes, members, committees, hearings, and more — through natural language via the Model Context Protocol.

Quick Start

1. Get a free Congress.gov API key

Sign up at api.congress.gov/sign-up (takes 30 seconds, completely free).

2. Configure your MCP client

Claude Desktop — add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "congressmcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["congressmcp"],
      "env": {
        "CONGRESS_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code — add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "congressmcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["congressmcp"],
      "env": {
        "CONGRESS_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor — add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json using the same format as VS Code.

3. Start asking questions

"Find recent climate change bills in the 119th Congress" "How did senators from California vote on the latest defense bill?" "Who are the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee?" "What's the latest action on H.R. 1234?"

Tools

6 toolsets, 91+ operations covering all Congress.gov API endpoints:

Toolset	Operations	What it does
Bills	16	Search, details, text, actions, amendments, cosponsors, subjects
Amendments	7	Search, details, actions, sponsors, text
Treaties & Summaries	5	Treaty search, actions, committees, text; bill summaries
Members & Committees	13	Member search by name/state/district, sponsored legislation, committee bills/reports
Voting & Nominations	13	House/Senate votes, nominations, roll calls
Records & Hearings	10+	Congressional Record, hearings, CRS reports, committee prints

Running from source

git clone https://github.com/amurshak/congressMCP
cd congressMCP
pip install -e .

# stdio (default — for MCP clients)
CONGRESS_API_KEY=your-key congressmcp

# HTTP (for self-hosting / remote access)
congressmcp --transport streamable-http --port 8000

Configuration

Variable	Required	Default	Description
CONGRESS_API_KEY	Yes	—	Your free Congress.gov API key
MCP_TRANSPORT	No	stdio	Transport mode (stdio or streamable-http)
ENABLE_CACHING	No	false	Cache API responses in memory
CACHE_TIMEOUT	No	300	Cache TTL in seconds

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Submit a pull request

License

Sustainable Use License

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Built for government transparency and accessible civic data.