Open States

Open States is a civic technology project that aggregates and publishes legislative data for all 50 US states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and select municipal governments. It provides a REST API (v3) and a deprecated GraphQL API (v2) for programmatic access to bill text, sponsors, votes, legislators, committee information, and legislative events. Data is also available via bulk downloads. The project is maintained by Plural Policy as open civic infrastructure.

Open States publishes 7 API contracts indexed on the APIs.io network, including Bills API, Committees API, Events API, and 4 more. Tagged areas include Government, Legislative, Civic Technology, State Legislature, and Bills.

The Open States catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

Open States’ developer surface includes engineering blog, documentation, pricing, and 13 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

25.8/100 emerging ▬ flat Agent 25/100 agent aware Front door AI 4/6 moderate Heartbeat 100/100 alive open core · MIT Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessFreemium

1 published contract

Government Legislative Civic TechnologyState LegislatureBills Legislators Committees Open Data REST GraphQL

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0

Composite quality — 25.8/100 · emerging

Contract Quality 9.7 / 19

Developer Ergonomics 1.8 / 15

Access Clarity 2.8 / 15

Operational Transparency 0.5 / 10

Contract Governance 0.9 / 9

Discoverability 5.0 / 8

Regulatory Posture 1.6 / 15

Open Source Surface 1.5 / 10

Agent readiness — 25/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 6 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 9 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 4 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 0 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Government & Public Sector regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Open Source Surface applies to this provider. This product is open source and we read its repository directly, so Open Source Surface carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from what the repository actually publishes — a security policy, a contribution guide, a release history, a code of conduct — read live from the provider rather than inferred from our own catalog pointers. This facet adds; nothing was taken away to make room for it. An open-source project is not excused from the commercial facets, because exemption would strip it of the points it does earn. If we have the wrong repository, or this product is not open source, say so on your provider repo and we will drop the facet rather than have you publish against it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics does not apply to this provider. The published contracts declare no write operations, and a read-only API cannot create-or-update. The facet is excluded from this provider's denominator entirely — not scored zero. A reference or data API is not deficient for being unable to upsert.

The six quality facets above are damped to 75 points between them, because both conditional facets apply and carry 25 points together. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 75% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

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Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

MCP Server +12 pts — deployment.mode + probe verdict on the mcp/ manifest, not the pointer; an unprobed slug falls back to authorship
Machine-Readable Auth +10 pts — a served openid-configuration/oauth-authorization-server carrying `issuer` (served), else the securitySchemes class in the provider OpenAPIs — bound (mutualTLS, DPoP, Signature) > negotiable (oauth2 authorizationCode/clientCredentials, openIdConnect) > bearer (http bearer, apiKey)
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0
Request/Response Examples +7 pts — share of operations carrying request/response examples; else an Examples / Code Samples link
Registration Without a Human +6 pts — a `registration_endpoint` in the served RFC 8414 / OIDC discovery document
Delegated User Identity +6 pts — a served discovery document listing authorization_code in grant_types_supported (served), else an oauth2 authorizationCode flow or openIdConnect declared in an OpenAPI (documented)

7 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Developer Ergonomics scores 11.9 — up to +17.6 composite points
Access Clarity scores 18.4 — up to +16.3 composite points
Operational Transparency scores 5.3 — up to +12.3 composite points

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/openstates/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/openstates to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Standards implemented 3

Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.

GraphQL

tagged — the provider's own APIs.json carries the standard as a tag; implementation not verified

REST

tagged — the provider's own APIs.json carries the standard as a tag; implementation not verified

OpenAPI

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

APIs 7

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Open States GraphQL API (v2 - Deprecated)

Legacy GraphQL API providing access to Open States legislative data. This API has been deprecated in favour of API v3. Existing integrations should migrate to the REST v3 API.

Open States Bills API

The bills API from Open States — 3 operation(s) for bills.

Open States Committees API

The committees API from Open States — 2 operation(s) for committees.

Open States Events API

The events API from Open States — 2 operation(s) for events.

Open States Jurisdictions API

The jurisdictions API from Open States — 2 operation(s) for jurisdictions.

Open States Metrics API

The Metrics API from Open States — 1 operation(s) for metrics.

Open States People API

The people API from Open States — 2 operation(s) for people.

Scroll for all 7

Open Collections 6

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Open States API v3 bills API

OPEN COLLECTION

Open States API v3 bills committees API

OPEN COLLECTION

Open States API v3 bills events API

OPEN COLLECTION

Open States API v3 bills jurisdictions API

OPEN COLLECTION

Open States API v3 bills Metrics API

OPEN COLLECTION

Open States API v3 bills people API

OPEN COLLECTION

GraphQL 1

GraphQL schemas published by this provider.

Open States GraphQL API

The Open States GraphQL API (v2) provides programmatic access to US state legislative data through a flexible GraphQL interface. The API exposes data covering all 50 states, Was...

GRAPHQL

Open States API pricing

Not yet checked against Open States's own pricing page. Compiled by API Evangelist; confirm before you rely on a figure. A free plan or tier is listed.

Plan	Price
Default	Free
Bronze	Free
Silver	Free
Unlimited	Free

Plan details, limits and sources →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Openstates Plans Pricing

4 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Openstates Rate Limits

0 limits

RATE LIMITS

Service Levels 1

Uptime the provider promises or reports, as SLA4OAI. Read from its own pages; APIs.io runs no monitors.

Open States

SLA

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Openstates Finops

FINOPS

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Openstates Context

63 classes · 0 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Open States — jsonschema rules

6 rules · 5 warnings 1 info

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 3

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Bill

22 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Jurisdiction

9 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Person

20 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Examples 3

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

Bills Search

3 fields

EXAMPLE

Jurisdictions List

3 fields

EXAMPLE

People Geo

3 fields

EXAMPLE

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Openstates Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Openstates Agentic Access

12 operations

12 operations · 0 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Build 2

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

CodeOfConduct

CodeOfConduct

GitHubOrg

GitHubOrg

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

IssueTracker

IssueTracker

RateLimits

RateLimits

Commercial 4

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

License

Pricing

Plans

FinOps

Company 4

The organization behind the API

Blog

BlogRSS

Website

Blog

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Source (apis.yml)

aid: openstates
name: Open States
description: 'Open States is a civic technology project that aggregates and publishes legislative data for all 50 US states,
  Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and select municipal governments. It provides a REST API (v3) and a deprecated GraphQL API (v2)
  for programmatic access to bill text, sponsors, votes, legislators, committee information, and legislative events. Data
  is also available via bulk downloads. The project is maintained by Plural Policy as open civic infrastructure.

  '
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: open-core
  license: MIT
  open_source: true
  commercial: true
  callable_host: true
  label: Open core · an OSS project plus a commercial hosted product
  confidence: high
  source:
  - license
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Freemium
  confidence: low
  source:
  - plans
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-06'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/openstates.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/openstates/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-10-06'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
x-docs-platform: mkdocs
x-docs-platform-confidence: medium
x-docs-platform-checked: 2026-10-04
x-docs-hosting: github-pages
tags:
- Government
- Legislative
- Civic Technology
- State Legislature
- Bills
- Legislators
- Committees
- Open Data
- REST
- GraphQL
tags_raw:
- Government
- Legislative Data
- Civic Technology
- State Legislature
- Bills
- Legislators
- Committees
- Open Data
- REST
- GraphQL
apis:
- aid: openstates:openstates-graphql-api
  name: Open States GraphQL API (v2 - Deprecated)
  description: 'Legacy GraphQL API providing access to Open States legislative data. This API has been deprecated in favour
    of API v3. Existing integrations should migrate to the REST v3 API.

    '
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
  humanURL: https://docs.openstates.org/graphql/
  baseURL: https://openstates.org/graphql/
  tags:
  - GraphQL
  - Deprecated
  - Legislative
  tags_raw:
  - GraphQL
  - Deprecated
  - Legislative Data
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.openstates.org/graphql/
  - url: graphql/openstates-graphql.md
    type: GraphQL
  - url: graphql/openstates-schema.graphql
    type: GraphQLSchema
  contact:
  - FN: Open States Support
    email: contact@openstates.org
- aid: openstates:openstates-bills-api
  name: Open States Bills API
  description: The bills API from Open States — 3 operation(s) for bills.
  humanURL: https://docs.openstates.org/api-v3/
  baseURL: https://v3.openstates.org/
  tags:
  - Bills
  tags_raw:
  - bills
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/openstates-bills-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.openstates.org/api-v3/
  - type: SwaggerUI
    url: https://v3.openstates.org/docs/
  - type: ReDoc
    url: https://v3.openstates.org/redoc/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/openstates/api-v3
- aid: openstates:openstates-committees-api
  name: Open States Committees API
  description: The committees API from Open States — 2 operation(s) for committees.
  humanURL: https://docs.openstates.org/api-v3/
  baseURL: https://v3.openstates.org/
  tags:
  - Committees
  tags_raw:
  - committees
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/openstates-committees-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.openstates.org/api-v3/
  - type: SwaggerUI
    url: https://v3.openstates.org/docs/
  - type: ReDoc
    url: https://v3.openstates.org/redoc/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/openstates/api-v3
- aid: openstates:openstates-events-api
  name: Open States Events API
  description: The events API from Open States — 2 operation(s) for events.
  humanURL: https://docs.openstates.org/api-v3/
  baseURL: https://v3.openstates.org/
  tags:
  - Event
  tags_raw:
  - events
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/openstates-events-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.openstates.org/api-v3/
  - type: SwaggerUI
    url: https://v3.openstates.org/docs/
  - type: ReDoc
    url: https://v3.openstates.org/redoc/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/openstates/api-v3
- aid: openstates:openstates-jurisdictions-api
  name: Open States Jurisdictions API
  description: The jurisdictions API from Open States — 2 operation(s) for jurisdictions.
  humanURL: https://docs.openstates.org/api-v3/
  baseURL: https://v3.openstates.org/
  tags:
  - Jurisdictions
  tags_raw:
  - jurisdictions
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/openstates-jurisdictions-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.openstates.org/api-v3/
  - type: SwaggerUI
    url: https://v3.openstates.org/docs/
  - type: ReDoc
    url: https://v3.openstates.org/redoc/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/openstates/api-v3
- aid: openstates:openstates-metrics-api
  name: Open States Metrics API
  description: The Metrics API from Open States — 1 operation(s) for metrics.
  humanURL: https://docs.openstates.org/api-v3/
  baseURL: https://v3.openstates.org/
  tags:
  - Metrics
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/openstates-metrics-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.openstates.org/api-v3/
  - type: SwaggerUI
    url: https://v3.openstates.org/docs/
  - type: ReDoc
    url: https://v3.openstates.org/redoc/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/openstates/api-v3
- aid: openstates:openstates-people-api
  name: Open States People API
  description: The people API from Open States — 2 operation(s) for people.
  humanURL: https://docs.openstates.org/api-v3/
  baseURL: https://v3.openstates.org/
  tags:
  - People
  tags_raw:
  - people
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/openstates-people-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.openstates.org/api-v3/
  - type: SwaggerUI
    url: https://v3.openstates.org/docs/
  - type: ReDoc
    url: https://v3.openstates.org/redoc/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/openstates/api-v3
common:
- url: https://pluralpolicy.com/blog/
  type: Blog
- url: https://pluralpolicy.com/blog/feed/
  type: BlogRSS
- type: IssueTracker
  url: https://github.com/openstates/api-v3/issues
- type: CodeOfConduct
  url: https://github.com/openstates/.github/blob/main/code_of_conduct.md
- type: License
  name: MIT
  url: https://github.com/openstates/api-v3/blob/main/LICENSE
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/openstates-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/openstates-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://pluralpolicy.com/open
- type: Documentation
  url: https://docs.openstates.org/
- type: GitHubOrg
  url: https://github.com/openstates
- type: Blog
  url: https://blog.openstates.org/
- type: Pricing
  url: https://open.pluralpolicy.com/accounts/profile/
- type: X
  url: https://twitter.com/openstates
- type: Plans
  url: plans/openstates-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/openstates-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/openstates-finops.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

Open States API — frequently asked questions

Does Open States have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 7 APIs from Open States, including Open States GraphQL API (v2 - Deprecated), Open States Bills API and Open States Committees API, and 4 more.

Is there an OpenAPI specification for the Open States API?

Yes. APIs.io indexes 6 OpenAPI specifications for Open States, each linked for download from this page.

How much does the Open States API cost?

APIs.io lists 4 pricing plans for Open States, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Is the Open States API ready for AI agents?

Open States has a Kin Score of 25.8 out of 100 (emerging) and an Agent Readiness score of 24.9 (agent-aware), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.

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