mcpbeat

Bill Commons MCP Server

org.billcommons/bill-commons
answering

Bill Commons is answering right now. Last checked 12 min ago. It exposes 10 tools. Last commit 3 Aug 2026.

Search 209k+ US state bills, all 50 states + DC: full text, sponsors, votes, status. Free.

Uptime history 40 hours of history
40 hours agonow
100.0%
Uptime 24h
91 of 91 checks
10
Tools
read from the server
489 ms
Response time
average over 24h
0
Stars
last commit 3 Aug 2026

Connect this server

Endpoint below is the one we actually reach during checks — not the one copied from a README. Last verified 12 min ago.

run in your terminal
claude mcp add bill-commons --transport http https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bill-commons": {
      "url": "https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}
~/.codex/config.toml
[mcp_servers.bill-commons]
url = "https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp"
.cursor/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bill-commons": {
      "url": "https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}
.vscode/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bill-commons": {
      "url": "https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Available tools 10

Read directly from the server with tools/list, grouped by what they act on. If a tool disappears, we record the date.

active
get_active_sessions
List legislative sessions currently flagged active, optionally filtered by jurisdiction (two-letter state code or name).
bill
get_bill_record
Fetch the full record for one bill: metadata, sponsors, subjects, actions, versions, and vote-event summaries. Look up by canonical bill_id (UUID), or by jurisdiction + identifier (+ optional session to disambiguate).
build
build_legislative_evidence_packet
Compile a citation-ready evidence packet for a bill: full official record, legislative history timeline, votes with member-level detail, and hearings -- each explicitly labeled official vs. derived with source URLs. Returns a `how_to_cite` block with a one-line `cite_as` sentence, a human `permalink`, a JSON `download_url`, and a `snapshot_id` that changes if and only if a cited fact about the bill changes -- so a reader can check later whether the citation still holds. Snapshots are NOT archived; the id is a change detector, not a way to retrieve an older packet. Pass `question` to record what the packet was assembled to answer; it is echoed into the artifact so a filed packet carries its own scope.
compare
compare_bill_versions
Deterministic diff (unified + structured) between two versions of a bill's extracted text. Defaults to earliest vs. latest texted version if version ids are omitted. Errors if fewer than 2 versions have extracted text. Result is labeled 'derived' (computed by Bill Commons, not an official document).
jurisdiction
get_jurisdiction_coverage
Return the jurisdiction_coverage state-machine status for one state (abbreviation or name), or the full 51-jurisdiction coverage matrix if state is omitted.
legislation
search_legislation
Search bills by keyword/phrase (full-text) or normalized bill number (e.g. "HB 123", "H.B. 123", "hb123" all match). Optionally filter by jurisdiction (two-letter state code or name), chamber, and status.
similar
find_similar_bills
Find bills with similar titles via deterministic trigram similarity, across jurisdictions. Labeled 'derived' -- not an official cross-reference or companion-bill designation.
trace
trace_legislative_history
Full chronological legislative history for a bill: merged timeline of actions, version publications, and votes, plus related-bill links.
upcoming
get_upcoming_hearings
List upcoming (future-dated) legislative hearings/events, optionally filtered by jurisdiction and/or bill.
vote
get_vote_details
Fetch vote event(s) with member-level (yes/no/other/absent) vote records. Provide vote_event_id for one vote, or bill_id for all recorded votes on that bill.

Endpoints

URLTransportStateLatencyChecked
https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp streamable-http answering 501 ms 12 min ago

Bill Commons — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

What can Bill Commons do?
It exposes 10 tools, read directly from the server on our last check. Among them: build_legislative_evidence_packet, compare_bill_versions, find_similar_bills, get_active_sessions, get_bill_record, get_jurisdiction_coverage and 4 more. The full list with descriptions is on this page — we take it from the server itself via tools/list, not from a README. How MCP servers expose tools in the first place →
Is Bill Commons working right now?
We send a real MCP handshake every 15 minutes. Over the last 24 hours 91 of 91 checks got a reply (100.0%), average response time 489 ms. The bar chart above shows every period we have measured.
How do I connect Bill Commons?
Copy the ready config from this page — we generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each with the file path that client actually reads. It is a remote server, so there is nothing to install — the client connects to the address.
Does Bill Commons need an API key?
No. Bill Commons completed a full MCP handshake with us as an anonymous client and listed its tools without asking for anything. All 10 of them are readable on this page. This is what we observed, not what the docs claim.
How fast is Bill Commons?
It answers our handshake in 489 ms on average, which is faster than 23% of all working MCP servers we measure. That is on the slow side — worth knowing if the tool sits inside an interactive loop. The comparison comes from our own checks across the whole registry, every 15 minutes.
Is Bill Commons open source?
Yes — it is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, written in Python and 0 stars on GitHub. The source link is on this page, so you can read exactly what it does with your data before you connect it.