In 2005, GovTrack was the first to make U.S. federal legislative information comprehensively available in an open, structured data format for researchers, journalists, other public interest projects, and anyone to freely reuse for any purpose.

[3][non-primary source needed] Since 2004, GovTrack had published specific legislator report cards ranking Senators based who their bill co-sponsors were.

[4] Republicans had been citing the single-year 2019 ranking that labeled Kamala Harris as the most liberal senator in criticism of her in 2020 and 2024.

[4][6] GovTrack was cited by Clyde Haberman in The New York Times,[7] and was mentioned as striving to help educate voters about legislation by The San Francisco Chronicle.

[9] A survey conducted showed that GovTrack helped raise awareness among common citizens through their report card for each legislative year since 2013.