About Related Bills

Legislation may contain related or similar bill information on the Related Bills tab. Related bills are treated differently based on their Congress and data source. The three ranges of related bills are: 1973 to the present, 1951 to 1972, and 1799 to 1873. Read more about each range and their data sources below.

Legislation from the 93^rd Congress (1973) to the present

Legislation from 1973 (93^rd Congress) to the present may have related bills as identified by the House, Senate, or CRS.  Bill relationships for Congress.gov are identified based on the official bill text. Once the text has been published by GPO, bills are reviewed and bill relationships entered accordingly.

A related bill may be an identical bill, one with text similarities, a procedurally-related measure, or a companion measure. Those related bills are limited to same-Congress measures. Read more below about the related bill types.

Identical

A measure that is word-for-word identical to another measure. Measures are characterized as identical to each other at the introduced stage only, even though a later (e.g., reported or passed) version of a bill might meet the same criteria for text similarity. CRS is responsible for adding this related bill type to legislation. CRS closely examines official bill text and only adds identical relationships where official bill texts are identified as identical or nearly identical (such as minor text or style differences).

Text similarities

A measure that is substantially similar in both text and meaning. Relationships indicated on this basis also include cases where language of one measure is found intact in another, often larger, measure. CRS is primarily responsible for adding this related bill type to measures. CRS closely examines official bill text and only adds related bill relationships for text similarities when there is a high degree of similarity in both content and meaning between both bill texts. The House may also add this related bill type.

Procedurally-related measure

A measure that affects consideration of other measures (e.g., a rule for consideration, a bill ordered to be reported or passed in lieu of another measure). The House adds this related bill type to legislation.

Companion measure

A measure that is identical or substantially similar to a measure introduced in the other chamber. This related bill type was added by the Senate, but it is no longer applied to current measures.

Legislation from the 82^nd to 92^nd Congresses (1951-1972)

Legislation from 1951 (82^nd Congress) to 1972 (92^nd Congress) may have related bills as identified through the History of Bills section of the Bound Congressional Record. Those related bills are limited to same-Congress measures.

Related bills are unlinked in this legislation range since the data available on Congress.gov for the 82nd to the 92nd Congresses is limited to just measures that became public or private law. Read more about the data available for this range at About Legislation.

Legislation from the 6th to 42^nd Congresses (1799-1873)

Legislation from 1799 (6^th Congress) to 1873 (42^nd Congress) may have similar bill information as identified through the Similar Bills Tool, which uses keyword matching to identify possible similar legislation using the title. These similar bills are not verified by CRS.

Similar bill results are limited by the following parameters:

1. Retrieved bill’s title is at least 90% similar to the base bill’s title.
2. Retrieved bill is in the same or within one Congress of the base bill.

Read more about the data available for this range at About Legislation.