get_hearings
Retrieve congressional hearing data from the official Congress.gov API by filtering by congress, chamber, date range, or specific hearing number to access government proceedings.
Instructions
Retrieve hearing information from the Congress.gov API. Full documentation for this endpoint -> https://github.com/LibraryOfCongress/api.congress.gov/blob/main/Documentation/HearingEndpoint.md
Args: congress: Congress number (e.g., 118 for 118th Congress) chamber: Chamber (house, senate) hearing_number: Specific hearing number offset: Starting record (default 0) limit: Maximum records to return (max 250, default 20) from_datetime: Start timestamp (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ format) to_datetime: End timestamp (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ format)
Returns: dict: Hearing data from Congress.gov API
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| chamber | No | ||
| congress | No | ||
| from_datetime | No | ||
| hearing_number | No | ||
| limit | No | ||
| offset | No | ||
| to_datetime | No |
Implementation Reference
- server.py:613-669 (handler)The handler function for the 'get_hearings' MCP tool. It constructs a URL for the Congress.gov hearings endpoint based on parameters, makes an API request using requests.get, and returns the JSON response or an error dict.@mcp.tool() async def get_hearings( congress: int | None = None, chamber: str | None = None, hearing_number: int | None = None, offset: int = 0, limit: int = 20, from_datetime: str | None = None, to_datetime: str | None = None ) -> dict: """ Retrieve hearing information from the Congress.gov API. Full documentation for this endpoint -> https://github.com/LibraryOfCongress/api.congress.gov/blob/main/Documentation/HearingEndpoint.md Args: congress: Congress number (e.g., 118 for 118th Congress) chamber: Chamber (house, senate) hearing_number: Specific hearing number offset: Starting record (default 0) limit: Maximum records to return (max 250, default 20) from_datetime: Start timestamp (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ format) to_datetime: End timestamp (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ format) Returns: dict: Hearing data from Congress.gov API """ base_url = "https://api.congress.gov/v3/hearing" url = base_url if congress: url += f"/{congress}" if chamber: url += f"/{chamber}" if hearing_number: url += f"/{hearing_number}" params = { "api_key": congress_gov_api_key, "format": "json", "offset": offset, "limit": min(limit, 250) # API max limit for hearings } if from_datetime: params["fromDateTime"] = from_datetime if to_datetime: params["toDateTime"] = to_datetime try: response = requests.get(url, params=params) response.raise_for_status() return response.json() except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e: return { "error": f"Failed to retrieve hearing information: {str(e)}", "status_code": getattr(e.response, "status_code", None) }