Module 5 of 9
Actions + the timeline
A bill's lifecycle is recorded as a sequence of actions: introduced, referred to committee, marked up, reported out, placed on calendar, debated, voted on, amended, sent to other chamber, conference report, presented to the President, signed into law (becomes Public Law), vetoed (overridden or upheld), or pocket-vetoed at adjournment. Each action has a date, a chamber, and a Library-of-Congress action code. pac.dog mirrors the full timeline.
Votes
A roll-call vote records every member's position (yea / nay / present / not voting) on a question — final passage, an amendment, a motion to recommit, etc. Both chambers publish roll calls as XML. pac.dog stores one row per (congress, chamber, roll, member) so "who voted with whom" is one SQL JOIN.
Congresses
A congress is the two-year period seating one set of senators and representatives. The 119th Congress runs Jan 3, 2025 — Jan 3, 2027. The 1st Congress was 1789-1791. Bills and votes are numbered per-congress and reset; members carry their bioguide id across congresses for as long as they serve.
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