# Bill tracker: get pinged when a bill in Congress or your state moves > Watch the Congress.gov or state legislature page for the bill you care about, and let AyeWatch send a short summary when its status, text or hearing date changes. URL: https://claudegpt.si/news/bill-tracker-congress-and-state-alerts Published: 2026-11-04T06:22:48.973Z Author: ClaudeGPT Si Newsroom Section: Guides Topics: Bill tracking, Legislation, Congress.gov Publisher: ClaudeGPT Si ## Key takeaways - A bill tracker watches the official page for a bill, where actions, amendments and hearing dates appear before news coverage does. - Congress.gov and some states, such as Texas, Washington and Florida, offer their own email alerts, but each needs its own account and none filters by what matters to you. - AyeWatch watches the bill pages you add, applies a plain-English rule and sends a short summary; it has a free preview and paid plans from $9 a month. A bill tracker watches the official page for a bill you name and tells you when it moves: a new action, an amendment, a hearing date, a vote. [AyeWatch](https://ayewatch.ai) does this for public bill pages on Congress.gov and state legislature sites, and sends a short summary with a link back to the page when the change is one you asked about. ## Why the bill page beats the news Most people follow legislation through newsletters and keyword alerts, and both lag. A weekly digest reports Thursday's amendment the following Monday. A keyword alert for a phrase like "privacy bill" fills up with opinion columns while the bill itself sits in a browser tab you forgot to refresh. The bill page is where the facts land first. A Congress.gov bill record carries its actions, amendments, committees, cosponsors, text versions and latest action, according to the Library of Congress's own [API documentation](https://github.com/LibraryOfCongress/api.congress.gov/blob/main/Documentation/BillEndpoint.md). State legislature sites keep the same kind of record for state bills. A useful tracker reads that page, not the commentary about it. ## Free alerts you already have Before you pay for anything, check what the legislature gives away. As of November 2026: | Where | What it sends | What you need | | --- | --- | --- | | Congress.gov | Email when a current bill has new activity or a new summary | A Congress.gov account (email and password) | | Texas Legislature Online (MyTLO) | Email when bills get significant actions or are assigned a subject | Free registration | | Washington Legislature | Updates on bills, committees and schedules | An account for Selected Bill Tracking | | Florida Senate Tracker | Email when tracked items are updated | An account; Florida treats your email as a public record | These work, but each is its own login, its own email format and its own rules. The Congress.gov bill alert only covers bills in the current Congress that have not yet passed both chambers, as the [Library of Congress explains](https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2020/03/congress-gov-keeps-you-up-to-date-with-email-alerts/). Texas clears MyTLO email alerts before each regular session's prefiling period. And none of them let you say which changes matter to you. ## Set up a bill tracker with AyeWatch 1. **Open the bill's page.** Copy the Congress.gov URL for the bill number, or the bill page on your state legislature's site. 2. **Add it as a webpage monitor.** Paste the URL into AyeWatch. 3. **Write the rule in plain English.** For example: "Tell me when the status changes, an amendment is filed or a hearing is set. Ignore related bills and layout changes." AyeWatch judges changes by meaning, not by keyword, so a moved sidebar does not count as news. 4. **Add a topic for the same bill.** A second monitor can follow coverage and statements that mention the bill by number, so the official record and the reporting arrive in one feed. 5. **Choose where alerts land.** Push and the in-app feed come with every plan. Email, Slack, Discord and webhooks are on paid plans, which helps when a policy team shares one channel. Start with the one federal bill that could change your business, then add the one or two states where you have staff. Fifty state portals behind one vague rule is how you rebuild the noisy inbox you were trying to leave. ## What AyeWatch does not do AyeWatch watches the public pages and topics you give it. It does not keep its own bill database, score legislators or run advocacy campaigns. It does not write testimony or tell you what a bill means for your company. You still read the text and decide what to do, and nothing here is legal advice. If you track hundreds of bills across all 50 states with a team that logs positions and meetings, a full legislative platform such as [Plural](https://pluralpolicy.com/) or [Quorum](https://www.quorum.us/legislative-tracking/) is the better purchase. If you follow a single federal bill and the Congress.gov email is enough, keep using it. For a short list of bills across Congress and a few states, AyeWatch is the simpler setup, and its [legal and policy page](https://ayewatch.ai/legal) covers related watches such as dockets and platform rules. There is a free preview, and [paid plans start at $9 a month](https://ayewatch.ai/pricing). Paste the bill page you already check by hand and see what the first alert says. ## Frequently asked questions ### Is there a free bill tracker? Yes. Congress.gov sends email alerts on bills in the current Congress once you create an account, and Texas Legislature Online's MyTLO is free with registration. AyeWatch has a free preview if you want filtered alerts across several sources. ### Can a bill tracker follow state bills? Yes. Paste the bill's page from the state legislature's website into AyeWatch, or use the state's own tool where one exists, such as MyTLO in Texas or the Florida Senate Tracker. ### Does AyeWatch have its own database of bills? No. It watches the public bill pages and topics you add and tells you when they change. For searching every bill in a session, a platform such as BillTrack50 or Plural fits better. ## Sources - [Bill tracking software](https://ayewatch.ai/blog/bill-tracking-software), AyeWatch - [AyeWatch pricing](https://ayewatch.ai/pricing), AyeWatch - [AyeWatch for legal, compliance, and policy](https://ayewatch.ai/legal), AyeWatch - [Congress.gov API: bill endpoints](https://github.com/LibraryOfCongress/api.congress.gov/blob/main/Documentation/BillEndpoint.md), Library of Congress - [Congress.gov keeps you up to date with email alerts](https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2020/03/congress-gov-keeps-you-up-to-date-with-email-alerts/), Library of Congress, In Custodia Legis - [Congress.gov quick start guide](https://www.congress.gov/content/images/PublicQuickStartGuide-1.pdf), Congress.gov, Library of Congress - [MyTLO login and alerts](https://capitol.texas.gov/MyTLO/Login/Login.aspx), Texas Legislature Online - [Bills](https://app.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/), Washington State Legislature - [Senate Tracker](https://www.flsenate.gov/Tracker), The Florida Senate - [Plural plans and pricing](https://pluralpolicy.com/pricing/), Plural - [Legislative tracking software](https://www.quorum.us/legislative-tracking/), Quorum