CongressMCP-bridge

congressmcp

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

Installation

Setup

1. Get your API key:
   • Visit: https://congressmcp.lawgiver.ai
   • Sign up for a free account
   • Check your email for your API key
2. 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

3. 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:

1. Obtaining a free Congress.gov API key at: https://api.congress.gov/sign-up/
2. 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

support@congressmcp.lawgiver.ai