Calendars for the Senate and House of Representatives
Track 2025 floor sessions on your personal calendar
Would you like to know when the Senate or House of Representatives are scheduled to meet? Now you can — subscribe to this Google calendar and add those dates to your personal calendar. Or, if you prefer Outlook, download the iCal file here. (Update: Note for Outlook users: Outlook will eventually ask you if you want to open the calendar as a new calendar or import the items into your current calendar. You may wish to choose new calendar, otherwise it may mark each day as “busy.”)
These files are made available courtesy of the American Governance Institute. You’re welcome.
But hey, don’t you think this information should be provided in a digital format by the Library of Congress on Congress.gov, the “official website for U.S. federal legislative information?” If you do—whether you’re a staffer or member of the general public—take a few moments to suggest the Library make the upgrade.
The House Calendar
The official House of Representatives floor calendar is published by the House Majority leader, in this case published by Majority Leader Scalise. They keep it up to date as the schedule chaneges. Unfortunately, it is not published as a file you can add to your online calendar.
House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark publishes a digital version of the House floor calendar that you can incorporate into your online calendar. Nicely done.
It is not “official,” however, in the sense it is not published by the majority or by the non-partisan Clerk. It’s my understanding that she continuously updates her digital calendar as meeting dates change.
The Senate publishes its floor calendar on a central website. It does publish it in an XML format, which is nicely done, but not in (more) user-friendly Google calendar or iCal formats.
A unified calendar?
Finding the House and Senate calendars can be a bit tricky. Most people wouldn’t think to go to the Majority Leader’s website for the House calendar or look on the Senate.gov webpage. The logical place to go is the Congress.gov website, run by the Library of Congress, which has a ton of web traffic. If you look closely on the landing page, you can find it under “floor calendars.”
But if you click on the floor calendars link, you’re in for a disappointment. Congress.gov does provide links to where you can find the House and Senate calendars. But they do not have a unified calendar showing the floor schedule for both chambers. And they do not provide the calendar in a digital format that you can add to your online calendar.
The Library of Congress does know how to publish a calendar. They publish a unified committee schedule, showing when hearings take place in each chamber. They do this because we worked with appropriators, who directed the Library of Congress to build this tool. Read Dr. Josh Tauberer testifying before appropriators to make the request.
This was the result.
So why doesn’t the Library of Congress incorporate information on the committee schedule webpage concerning whether the House or Senate is in session, or otherwise make the data available separately?
The Library is most likely to act when congress passes legislation requiring it to do so. It also is often responsive to report language accompanying legislation.
The next lower level of responsiveness is to its oversight and appropriating committees. When they ask for something, the Library often (but not always) addresses the issue. (Public access to CRS reports is a notable example of the Library not listening to a committee’s direction.)
Then comes requests or pressure from individual or groups of members of Congress (or their staff).
Lastly are requests from the public. These requests may be addressed, especially when they are not political. However, they can also become ensnarled with the internal politics of divisions within the Library. They also can run into resourcing issues, data quality issues, and obtaining support from the relevant congressional committees.
It took me longer to write this newsletter than to create the Google calendar and iCal files. Creating a central, digital floro calendar is not a hard lift, even when you think about the time involved keeping the calendars up to date.
It would be great to start the new year with an official, authoritative digital source for the House and Senate’s floor calendar. If you think so too, drop the Library a line.
People should NOT download the calendar, because it will mark all day every day either house is in session as "busy" making it impossible for people to see when you can schedule appointments.