How we classify bills

Type

Each bill gets one type. The rules are checked in this order; the first that fits wins.

1. Non-binding resolution

A simple or concurrent resolution (H.Res., S.Res., H.Con.Res., S.Con.Res.). These don’t go to the President and don’t change law: they state a view, honor someone or mark an occasion.

Exception: a resolution that does binding business inside Congress is substantive. That is one whose official title shows it:

• Sets the terms of debate on a bill (a "rule" from the Rules Committee) or settles a disagreement between the chambers
• Adopts or changes the chamber’s rules or procedures
• Impeaches an official or sets an impeachment trial; censures, reprimands, expels or removes a member; holds someone in contempt of Congress; or vacates the Speaker’s office
• Elects or appoints members, officers or committee seats
• Directs or authorizes the chamber’s officers (Speaker, Clerk, Secretary, Sergeant at Arms)
• Funds committees or chamber operations
• Adjourns or convenes the chamber, sets its meeting hour, notifies the other chamber or the President, or calls a joint session
• Is the congressional budget resolution
• Corrects a bill before it goes to the President, or orders printing
• Authorizes use of the Capitol, its grounds or rooms, or sets up an inaugural committee
• Authorizes legal representation, testimony or document production by the chamber
• Sets up a select committee, subcommittee or task force

2. Ceremonial

A bill or joint resolution whose only effect is one of these:

• Names or renames a post office
• Names or renames a federal building, courthouse, veterans clinic or facility, road or landmark
• Awards a Congressional Gold Medal or another medal
• Mints a commemorative coin
• Designates a day, week or month
• Commemorates a person, group or event

We call a bill ceremonial only when all of these hold:

1. Its official title says one of the things above, and a naming gives the name (“as the …”).
2. Something else backs that up: Congress.gov’s subject terms or policy area for the bill include “Congressional tributes”, “Commemorative events and holidays”, “Commemorations”, “Postal service” or “Coins and precious metals”, or its short title contains “Post Office”, “Postal Facility”, “Postal Building”, “Federal Building”, “Courthouse”, “Clinic”, “Medical Center”, “Congressional Gold Medal”, “Commemorative Coin”, “Memorial Highway” or “Memorial Bridge”.
3. Its official text has been published, and the text doesn’t amend or repeal a law, set aside other laws (“notwithstanding any other provision of law”), appropriate money or authorize appropriations.
4. For a naming, a designation or a commemoration, the title doesn’t add “and for other purposes” or a second purpose.

If any of these is missing, the bill stays substantive. A wrong “ceremonial” label is worse than a missed one.

3. Substantive

Everything else: bills and joint resolutions that change law, spending or programs, and resolutions that do binding business inside Congress.

Length

We count the words in the latest official text of the bill published by the Government Publishing Office on GovInfo. Only the body counts: the header block (Congress, session, bill number, sponsors, title), the enacting or resolving clause and line numbers are left out. A word is any run of characters that holds a letter or a number.

Amendment-only prints (an engrossed amendment) are skipped, since they hold only the change. Each bill page says which version was counted and its date.

Under 1,000 words the exact count shows; above that it is rounded (1.2k words, 1.2M words). A bill with no official text yet shows “Text pending”, never “0 words”.

Length groups on bill lists: short, under 1,000 words; medium, 1,000 to 9,999 words; long, 10,000 words or more.

Length is a fact, not a measure of importance or effort. A one-sentence bill can repeal a law, and a long bill can mostly repeat existing law.

How far it got

Each bill’s furthest stage comes from its full list of actions in GovInfo’s bill-status file, topped up each day by the latest action on Congress.gov.

1. Introduced: filed in the House or Senate
2. Referred to committee: sent to one or more committees
3. Reported out of committee: a committee reported it, or the chamber discharged the committee
4. Passed one chamber: passed the House or the Senate (for a simple resolution, this is the last step)
5. Passed both chambers: passed both chambers in some form, or was sent to the President
6. Vetoed: the President vetoed it and no override succeeded
7. Became law: signed, became law without a signature, or a veto was overridden

A failed vote doesn’t move a bill forward. A bill whose text passed inside another bill keeps its own stage.

How it ended

Most bills simply stop moving. Some end with an event, read from the same list of actions. When there are several, the newest one counts.

• Failed a floor vote: a vote on the bill itself failed in the House or the Senate. The action says one of these: “Failed of passage” in the House or Senate, “On passage … Failed” (a House recorded vote on passage), “On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill … Failed” (a House suspension vote, which needs two thirds), “On agreeing to the resolution … Failed” or “Resolution not agreed to in Senate”. It never counts when the vote was on cloture, a motion to proceed, table, commit, recommit, refer, postpone, reconsider, discharge, concur or instruct, a conference report (it failing doesn’t end the bill), a vote on an amendment, the previous question, or a rule for the bill’s debate or a point of order or waiver.
• Vetoed: “Vetoed by President” or “Veto message received”. A bill stays vetoed when a vote to override fails.
• Pocket vetoed: “Pocket Vetoed”.
• Veto overridden: after a veto, both the House and the Senate voted to override it (“over veto” (e.g. “Passed Senate over veto”) or “the objections of the President to the contrary notwithstanding” (the House’s override vote)), or the bill became law after the veto.
• Reported adversely: a committee reported the bill with a recommendation against it: “Reported adversely”, “Reported unfavorably” or “adverse report”. A committee vote to report it that way (“Ordered to be reported adversely”) isn’t the report itself.

A failed vote or an adverse report that is followed by the bill passing a chamber, going to the President or becoming law isn’t an ending: the bill kept moving. A bill with none of these events is still pending in the current Congress, or expired when its Congress ended.

How it left committee

Two routes are counted apart from the usual one (a committee report), each read on the bill’s way to passing the chamber it started in.

Skipped committee: the bill passed the House or the Senate with no committee report or discharge before it first passed. House bills passed under a suspension of the rules and Senate bills passed by unanimous consent often do. A committee vote to report the bill (a markup) with no report filed still counts as skipped. Resolutions follow the same rule. A committee in the second chamber reporting it later doesn’t change this.

Discharged from committee: the committee was taken off the bill before any report, by one of these: “On motion to discharge … Agreed to” (the House adopting a discharge motion; “Not Agreed to” doesn’t count), “Motion to discharge … committee … agreed to” (“not agreed to” doesn’t count), “Considered from the Discharge Calendar” (the House taking up a bill whose discharge petition reached 218 signatures), “Senate Committee … discharged by petition” (a Senate discharge petition under the Congressional Review Act or a similar law) and “Senate Committee … discharged by Yea-Nay Vote” (a recorded Senate vote to discharge); or “Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders” for a Senate bill or resolution with no committee referral before it (Senate Rule XIV). A discharged bill counts here whether or not it then passed. A committee discharged by unanimous consent, a routine step in both chambers, isn’t counted as a separate route; neither is a House-passed bill the Senate puts straight on its calendar.

Where bills stand

The Legislation page puts every bill in one of seven groups, by how far it got. Each bill is in exactly one, so the groups add up to the number of bills in the Congress.

1. No committee action: introduced or referred to a committee, with no hearing or markup on file (includes the few bills never sent to a committee)
2. Hearing or markup, not reported: a committee or subcommittee held a hearing or a markup, or voted to report it, but no report has been filed
3. Reported out of committee: a committee filed its report, or the chamber discharged the committee, and the bill hasn’t passed a chamber
4. Passed one chamber: passed the House or the Senate (for a simple resolution, the last step)
5. Passed both chambers: passed both in some form, or was sent to the President
6. Vetoed: the President vetoed it and no override succeeded
7. Became law: signed, became law without a signature, or a veto was overridden

A bill had a hearing or markup when its actions include “Hearings held” (a committee or subcommittee hearing on the bill), “Mark-up Session Held” (a committee or subcommittee markup), “Forwarded by Subcommittee to Full Committee”, “Committee consideration held” (a Senate committee business meeting) and “Ordered to be reported” (the committee’s vote to report it, before the report is filed), and no committee has reported it or been discharged. Only hearings and markups recorded in the bill’s own list of actions count.

“Bills” are the measures that can become law (H.R., S., H.J.Res. and S.J.Res.). Resolutions (H.Res., S.Res., H.Con.Res. and S.Con.Res.) are counted apart and can be added with the Resolutions switch.

In a Congress still in session, most bills sit in the first group: committees act on a small share of bills, and much of a Congress’s lawmaking happens in its last months.

Party of the sponsor

• Each bill counts once, under its sponsor’s party, in the bucket for its furthest stage. Cosponsors don’t count.
• The party is the sponsor’s party in that Congress, from the House and Senate rosters (Voteview). A member who switched parties during the Congress counts under the first party the roster lists.
• Independents are counted as independents, not with the party they caucus with, and are left out of majority-party shares.
• The majority party of each chamber is the party with more members on that Congress’s roster.

How long each step takes

Each step’s figures use only the bills that made that step. Bills still waiting at the step before are counted beside it, never averaged in: most of them will never take the step, so mixing them in would make the figure drift with the calendar.

1. Introduction to leaving committee: from the day it was introduced to its first committee report or discharge
2. To passing its first chamber: from its committee report or discharge, or its introduction when it skipped committee to its first chamber passage
3. To passing the second chamber: from its first chamber passage to the other chamber’s passage (bills and joint resolutions only)
4. To becoming law: from passing both chambers to the day it was signed or became law

Days are calendar days between the two actions’ dates. Each step shows the median, with the middle 80% (10th to 90th percentile) as a range. A bill that skipped committee has no first step; one discharged from committee is timed to the discharge.

How long bills are

The length chart counts each bill once, by the word count of its latest official text (see Length for how words are counted). Lengths run from one line to over a million words, so the chart uses these groups, each about three times the last:

• Under 100 words
• 100–299
• 300–999
• 1,000–2,999
• 3,000–9,999
• 10,000–29,999
• 30,000–99,999
• 100,000 or more

The median length is marked. Bills with no official text yet aren’t drawn and are counted beside the chart, never as zero words.