Scraping statutes at large (bill text 1951-1992)

[TomHSYu]

Hi,
I am trying to download bill text for pre-1993 periods that have no normal bill text. I followed the instructions in the bill text page and successfully downloaded the statutes data (replacing fdsys with govinfo) below. However, the scraper line does not appear to be running, as it relies on modules removed per #169. I tracked down the missing file bill_versions.py and downloaded other older related files (e.g., fdsys.py), but the latter appears to rely on older versions of some current files (e.g., bill_info.py). Is there any way I could download the older bill text?
./run fdsys --collections=STATUTE --store=mods,pdf --granules
./run statutes --volumes=65-106 --textversions --extracttext
Thanks in advance, and please let me know if you need any clarification!

[JoshData]

It's probably that when I overhauled the fdsys/govinfo scraper last year, because fdsys was shut down, I broke the other parts while trying to get the scraper working with govinfo.gov. (As far as I knew I was the only person who ran the other scripts, and I didn't need them at the time.) Unfortunately I don't really have the time to revisit the statutes scripts and get them back into shape.

[qdupouy]

If the statutes scraper is broken and THOMAS is gone, does that mean that there is not a way to access the bills data from the 93rd to 100th Congress? I am hoping to find the committee of referral(s) for each bill from the 93rd Congress to the present.

[JoshData]

The Statutes at Large scraper (which reorganizes Statute text as bill text) doesn't really have anything to do with bill data like that, but, yes, now that THOMAS is gone, there is no official raw data or a scraper for bill data from the 93rd to the 112th Congress.

I have archived my last scrape of THOMAS here which has that data (please credit the Library of Congress (the maintainer of THOMAS) and GovTrack.us):
https://www.govtrack.us/files/thomas-bill-status-data.tgz [link updated]

[lwaltman]

Is there any way you can re-expose the old bill (I believe THOMAS) directories that used to be exposed under https://www.govtrack.us/data/congress/ for a bit? I just need to collect a couple bills from there. If not, I understand if it takes too much time.

[JoshData]

Sorry I renamed the file that I posted in my previous comment. Archival data from THOMAS is now posted at:

• bill status (93rd-112th Congress)
• amendments (100th(?)-112th Congress)
• HTML-formatted bill text (101st(?)-114th Congress
• nominations (something through 114th Congress)