bicam 0.1.1

BICAM Dataset Downloader - Access comprehensive congressional data

BICAM - Comprehensive Congressional Data Downloader

The BICAM package provides easy programmatic access to the Bulk Ingestion of Congressional Actions & Materials (BICAM) dataset, a comprehensive collection of congressional data including bills, amendments, committee reports, hearings, and more sourced from the official congress.gov and GovInfo APIs.

Features

• 📦 12 Dataset Types: Access bills, amendments, members, committees, hearings, and more
• 🚀 Fast Downloads: Optimized S3 downloads with progress tracking
• 💾 Smart Caching: Automatic local caching to avoid re-downloads
• 🔧 Simple API: Both Python API and command-line interface
• ✅ Data Integrity: Automatic checksum verification
• 📊 Large Scale: Efficiently handles datasets from 100MB to 12GB+

Installation

From PyPI (Recommended)

# Using uv (faster, recommended)
uv pip install bicam

# Using pip (alternative)
pip install bicam

From Source

# Clone and install in development mode
git clone https://github.com/bicam-data/bicam
cd bicam
uv pip install -e .

Quick Start

Python API

import bicam

# Download a dataset
bills_path = bicam.download_dataset('bills')
print(f"Bills data available at: {bills_path}")

# Load data directly into a DataFrame (downloads if needed)
bills_df = bicam.load_dataframe('bills', 'bills_metadata.csv', download=True)
print(f"Loaded {len(bills_df)} bills")

# List available datasets
datasets = bicam.list_datasets()
print(f"Available datasets: {datasets}")

# Get dataset information
info = bicam.get_dataset_info('bills')
print(f"Size: {info['size_mb']} MB")

Command Line Interface

# List all available datasets
bicam list-datasets

# Download a specific dataset
bicam download bills

# Get detailed information about a dataset, such as size and file names
bicam info hearings

# Show cache usage
bicam cache

# Clear cached data
bicam clear bills        # Clear specific dataset
bicam clear --all       # Clear all cached data

Available Datasets

Dataset	Size	Description
bills	~2.5GB	Complete bills data including text, summaries, and related records
amendments	~800MB	All amendments with amended items
members	~150MB	Historical and current member information
nominations	~400MB	Presidential nominations data
committees	~200MB	Committee information, including history of committee names
committeereports	~1.2GB	Committee reports, with full text and related information
committeemeetings	~600MB	Committee meeting records
committeeprints	~900MB	Committee prints, including full text and topics
hearings	~3.5GB	Hearing information, such as address and transcripts
treaties	~300MB	Treaty documents with actions, titles, and more
congresses	~100MB	Congressional session metadata, like directories and session dates
complete	~12GB	Complete BICAM dataset with all data types

Configuration

Environment Variables

# Set custom cache directory (default: ~/.bicam)
export BICAM_DATA=/path/to/cache

# Control logging
export BICAM_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG

# Disable version check
export BICAM_CHECK_VERSION=false

Python Configuration

import bicam

# Get current cache size
cache_info = bicam.get_cache_size()
print(f"Total cache size: {cache_info['total']}")

# Clear specific dataset cache
bicam.clear_cache('bills')

# Clear all cached data
bicam.clear_cache()

Contributing

We may welcome contributions in the future. For now, please visit https://bicam.net/feedback for suggestions, concerns, or data inaccuracies.

Citation

If you use BICAM in your research, please cite:

{FUTURE CITATION GOES HERE}

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Support

• 📧 Email: [e-mail]
• 🐛 Issues: GitHub Issues
• 📖 Documentation: Read the Docs
• 💬 Feedback: BICAM.net/feedback

Acknowledgments

• Congressional data provided by https://api.congress.gov and https://api.govinfo.gov
• Built with support from MIT and the LobbyView team.

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