OpenStates MCP. Analyze US state bill status instantly.
OpenStates provides instant access to structured US state legislative data, allowing your AI agent to track bills, legislators, and committee structures across all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Instead of navigating dozens of disparate government websites, you can query the entire network of policy action through a single connection.
Give Claude and any AI agent real-world access
Search for specific bills using keywords, jurisdiction, or session details to find their status and history.
Fetch complete records, current roles, contact information, and background data on any state representative or senator.
List all legislative committees in a given area and retrieve the full roster of members serving on those boards.
Get a list of every state and territory covered by the data to confirm coverage before starting research.
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What AI agents can do with OpenStates: Legislative Data Access (7 Tools)
These tools allow your agent to execute specific functions like searching for bills, getting committee rosters, or retrieving detailed legislator profiles across US state records.
Make your AI actually useful.
Add this MCP to Claude, Cursor, or Windsurf and your AI stops guessing. It gets real tools to look things up, take action, and handle the stuff you keep doing by hand.
Start using OpenStates MCPGet Bill Details
Retrieves deep operational details and history for a specific legislative bill.
Get Committee Details
Gets comprehensive information about a particular legislative committee.
Get Legislator Details
Fetches the full profile and current status of an individual legislator.
List Committees
Generates a list of all available legislative committees within a specified...
List Jurisdictions
Provides an exhaustive list and description of all supported states and territories.
Search Bills
Searches across thousands of legislative bills using keywords, jurisdiction, or session year.
Search Legislators
Finds specific legislators and provides initial profile data based on names or roles.
Security and governance baked right in.
Pick your AI client below to get set up. Just create a Vinkius account, subscribe, and you're instantly up and running. We handle the entire backend infrastructure, delivering out-of-the-box support for HTTPS Streamable, SSE, and OAuth2—zero messy routing required.
Choose How to Get Started
Build a custom MCP for your own tools, or connect a ready-made integration from our catalog.
Build Your Own
Turn any API into an MCP. Import a spec, define Agent Skills, or deploy with MCPFusion.
- Import from OpenAPI, Swagger, or YAML specs
- Create Agent Skills with progressive disclosure
- Deploy to edge with MCPFusion framework
- Built in DLP, auth, and compliance on each call
- Real time usage dashboard and cost metering
- Publish to catalog or keep private
Make Your AI Do More
Start with OpenStates, then connect any of our 5,200+ other servers whenever your AI needs more. One click, no limits.
- Use this MCP plus 5,200+ others, all in one place
- Add new capabilities to your AI anytime you want
- Connections are secured and governed automatically
- Track usage and costs across all your servers
- Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and more
- New servers added to the catalog weekly
Independent Platform Disclaimer: Vinkius is an independent platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, verified by, or otherwise authorized by OpenStates. All third-party trademarks, logos, and brand names are the property of their respective owners. Their use on this website is strictly for informational purposes to identify service compatibility and interoperability.
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The State Capitol Maze: Where does legislative data actually live?
Today, tracking state laws feels like trying to map a maze built by bureaucracy. To find one piece of information—say, the current status of an environmental bill in Illinois—you usually have to navigate five different government websites. You click through session indexes, cross-reference committee pages, and then try to parse PDF documents to see if it passed or failed.
With this MCP, you just ask your agent. Instead of spending hours clicking tabs and copy-pasting links between state capitol sites, you get a single, clean answer that pulls the necessary data from dozens of sources at once. You're done with manual web scraping; you get actionable intelligence.
OpenStates MCP: Get Legislative Data in One Conversation
The most time-consuming part of research is the setup: determining which committee reviewed the bill, and then finding out who was on that specific committee when it passed. You spend minutes just trying to map these connections manually.
This MCP handles all that mapping instantly. It connects disparate pieces of data—the bill's action, the committee's membership, and the legislator's profile—into one conversation thread. Your agent does the connecting work for you.
What OpenStates MCP does for your AI
Your agent needs deep political context, and OpenStates delivers it. It gives your AI client instant access to bills, legislators, and committee metadata across every state and major jurisdiction in the U.S., plus D.C. and Puerto Rico. You can ask your agent to check on a policy trend or verify who sponsors specific legislation without ever opening a government website.
For instance, you can search for all educational proposals active in California this session, or audit the full profile of any state representative. Vinkius hosts this MCP so your agent talks to one source, no matter which compatible client you use. It's like having a dedicated political analyst constantly plugged into every state capitol building.
019d8468-4041-71c1-83e8-517a1668c353 How to set up OpenStates MCP
The bottom line is that you talk to your AI client, and it handles the complex data retrieval from OpenStates automatically.
Subscribe to this MCP on Vinkius and enter your OpenStates API Key.
Connect your preferred AI client (like Claude or Cursor) through the compatible interface.
Ask your agent a natural language question, like 'What bills are currently pending in Texas?'
Who uses OpenStates MCP
This MCP is for researchers, legal professionals, and policy teams who spend too much time manually navigating state government websites. If your job involves knowing exactly who passed what bill in which state, this is essential.
Using the MCP to monitor how specific policy topics are being debated across multiple states simultaneously.
Querying the history of bills and committee memberships to write detailed articles on legislative power structures.
Verifying the current status, version number, or sponsors of state-level legislation for client work.
Benefits of connecting OpenStates MCP
Stop cross-referencing state government websites. With this MCP, your agent gets all legislative data—bills, committees, and legislators—from one connection.
Audit any representative's background immediately. Use the get_legislator_details tool to pull complete profiles and current roles without manually checking state senate pages.
Track policy movement across multiple states. Search for education-related bills in California and New York using search_bills, then compare their statuses side-by-side.
Understand the legislative structure quickly. Use list_jurisdictions to see all supported states, ensuring your research scope is always correct before you begin.
Get deep context on specific laws. Beyond just finding a bill, use get_bill_details to analyze its full history and most recent actions in minutes.
OpenStates MCP use cases
Tracking state-level education reform
A policy team needs to know which states are pushing for changes regarding K-12 funding. They ask their agent to 'Search for bills related to education in the Northeast.' The agent uses search_bills and then pulls committee membership via list_committees, delivering a comparative analysis of 10 state proposals.
Verifying legal compliance
A law firm needs to know if a proposed business regulation is blocked by any current state legislation. They ask the agent to 'Check the status and sponsors for environmental bills in Arizona.' The agent uses get_bill_details and provides the exact version number needed for their memo.
Investigating political connections
A journalist wants to know which legislators sit on both the finance committee and the technology subcommittee. They first run list_committees, then use get_committee_details on each, giving them a definitive list of overlapping members.
Mapping political coverage
A civic tech developer needs to build a national dashboard. Instead of guessing, they first run list_jurisdictions to confirm which states are covered and then use the results to structure their data inputs.
OpenStates MCP tradeoffs
What to watch out for, and the recommended way to handle each one.
Assuming data consistency
Trying to find a specific bill's status by only checking one state government website. You waste hours clicking through departmental silos and finding outdated information.
Use the OpenStates MCP. First, use list_jurisdictions for scope confirmation. Then, run search_bills to hit every relevant state database simultaneously.
Missing committee context
Finding a bill passed by a chamber and assuming it's done. You don't know which specialized committee is supposed to review it next, so you wait weeks for an update that never comes.
Use list_committees to see all relevant bodies in the state. Then use get_committee_details to find out who has decision-making power over that bill.
Using generic search terms
Asking your agent for 'good legislation' or 'policy ideas.' The results are useless because the data isn't filtered by specific criteria, and you get thousands of irrelevant hits.
Be precise. Use search_bills and specify keywords and a jurisdiction (e.g., 'public health bills in Massachusetts'). Always narrow your search.
When to use OpenStates MCP
Use this MCP if you need structured, definitive political intelligence about state-level lawmaking. Specifically, if your workflow requires knowing the relationship between a bill, its sponsors, and the committees that review it, OpenStates is your tool. Don't use it if you are looking for general news coverage or opinions; it gives facts, not commentary. If you just need to verify who currently serves in state government generally, search_legislators works great. However, if you need a deep dive on how a specific law was passed and what happened to it afterward, you absolutely must use the combination of get_bill_details and list_committees. If your goal is purely document analysis (e.g., summarizing attached PDF policy white papers), then you're better off with a general document retrieval MCP instead.
Frequently asked questions about OpenStates MCP
Can OpenStates MCP find bills from all 50 states? +
Yes, it provides intelligence across all 50 states, plus D.C. and Puerto Rico. Use list_jurisdictions first to confirm coverage for your specific research area.
How do I find out who was on a committee? +
You can list all committees using list_committees, then use get_committee_details to retrieve the full membership roster and current roles of its members.
What is the difference between searching bills and getting bill details? +
Searching bills (search_bills) finds a list of potential laws by keyword or state. Getting bill details (get_bill_details) pulls the full, deep history and most recent actions for one specific law.
Does OpenStates MCP help with policy analysis? +
It provides the raw data needed for policy analysis. You can gather legislative stances on a topic across multiple states to build your argument, but you'll still write the final paper yourself.
What if I need legislator info that isn't current? +
The MCP pulls official records and profile data. If the information is not publicly filed in a state record system, the tool won't have it. Always verify the jurisdiction first.