Method

What goes in the register

A bill is recorded here when it would have directly changed what people pay, what they are owed, or what they are free to do, and when it either won a recorded vote or drew broad support from sponsors before stalling. The register covers federal bills only for now.

Bills are drawn from across the spectrum. Some would have expanded programs, and others would have limited what the government can take or do, such as the eminent domain, surveillance, and war powers entries. Sponsors from both parties appear in the register and party is shown only as a fact about the sponsor.

How a cause of death is assigned

Each bill gets one cause, the step where it stopped moving. When a bill passed one chamber and the other never voted, it is filed as passed one chamber. When a policy rode inside a larger bill and was removed by a procedural vote, it is filed as stripped out. The full list is on the causes of death page.

How it works

Every entry links to its official page on Congress.gov. Vote counts come from the House Clerk and Senate roll call records. A script checks each bill against the Congress.gov API and flags any change in status, so a bill that comes back to life gets noticed. Each page shows the date it was last verified.

Vote bars are drawn against the full chamber, 435 seats in the House and 100 in the Senate, so members who did not vote show as the gap between yeas and nays. The red line marks the votes the rule required.