About Legislation Lemur
Legislation Lemur is a civic data project built around clarity, trust, and restraint. It provides a clean, factual way to explore the U.S. Congress—without commentary, framing, or noise.
The platform focuses on core navigation and “fact-first” views: member profiles, bill activity, votes, committees, and a readable snapshot of what’s changing this session.
Coverage expands gradually. New dashboards and comparison views are layered on top of the same stable foundation—so the product stays fast, understandable, and neutral.
Current features
- Find members by name or state, and open clean factual profiles
- Explore bills, sponsors, and recent actions in a readable format
- See vote activity and alignment signals designed for clarity (not spin)
Core legislative data is refreshed on a regular weekly cadence.
Recently added
New tools and views now live across the site.
- Member vote alignment insights (issue-level patterns and context)
- Committees directory + overview page (types, counts, and navigation)
- Reference / Wiki pages for congressional concepts and sources
- Layout and readability improvements across core pages
Why it exists
Legislation Lemur began as a way to practice real-world data engineering, interface design, and civic visualization—while producing something genuinely useful.
The goal is simple: make it easier to understand how Congress works without requiring expertise, patience for dense tables, or exposure to opinion-driven cycles. No commentary. No outrage. Just accessible facts: who represents you, what they sponsor, how they vote, and how the institution is structured.
The name “Lemur” reflects curiosity and persistence—traits shared by both the data work behind the scenes and the broader civic goal. Participation is easier when information is neutral, understandable, and well-designed.
Last updated: February 27, 2026
How it works (high level)
- Collect data from official congressional sources and structured public APIs
- Normalize members, bills, votes, and session activity into consistent models
- Cache and precompute common views for fast, stable performance
- Present minimal interfaces that prioritize comprehension over density
Legislation Lemur is built with Next.js (App Router), server-rendered React, and an ingestion pipeline powered by scheduled updates and data validation.
Roadmap
Legislation Lemur expands through “change-first” views and comparisons—kept neutral, readable, and grounded in sourced data.
- Strengthen core Explore flows across members, bills, and committees
- Expand “what changed” surfaces and session snapshots while keeping interfaces lightweight
- Insights & Explore dashboards — Congress-wide views, filters, and change-over-time comparisons (bills, votes, committees)
- Improved bill understanding — better summaries, topic extraction, and sentiment/stance signals with clear sourcing and confidence
- Email updates — weekly summaries by saved locations and tracked members, with activity highlights and “what changed” comparisons
- Election tools — neutral voter guides and proposition breakdowns (where data is available)
Contact
Questions, corrections, or data issues? Send me a message.