I Built a Tool to Track Congress Members' Trades and Get Notifications – Here’s How I Did It

Hey there! I wanted to share a side project I’ve been working on called Politichook.com. It’s a tool that sends you email notifications whenever your selected Congress members file their stock trades. This isn’t some slick corporate product—it’s just something I hacked together to solve a problem I kept running into. Here’s the full story: why I built it, how I made it happen, and where it stands now.

The Backstory

It all started when my girlfriend and I got curious about the so-called “Pelosi trading strategy.” You’ve probably heard the buzz: Nancy Pelosi has a knack for picking winning stocks, and people love to copy her moves. We decided to test it out, and wow, did it pay off. In just a few months, our portfolio jumped +38%. Even now, with the market taking a beating, we’re still up +6%. It felt like we’d cracked a secret code to beat the market.

But here’s the catch: pulling it off wasn’t easy. I had to constantly check sites like QuiverQuant for the latest trade filings. I’d forget for days—or even weeks—because life gets busy. Plus, Congress members get a 30-day window to disclose their trades. By the time I’d spot a filing, the stock had often already spiked, and I’d missed the best entry point. It drove me nuts and ate into our profits.

The Idea

After missing one too many opportunities, I’d had enough. That’s when I came up with Politichook.com. The idea was simple: let users pick the Congress members they want to track, and whenever a new trade filing drops, they get an instant email. No more babysitting websites or playing catch-up. It’s a “set it and forget it” tool—exactly what I needed to stay on top of these trades.

The Build (and the Headaches)

Building Politichook.com was way tougher than I expected. The trade data comes from the House of Representatives’ Financial Disclosures site, but it’s a mess—mostly PDFs, and some are even handwritten. Here’s how I tackled the chaos:

• OCR Struggles: I used Tesseract, a free OCR tool, to extract text from the PDFs. It worked fine for typed filings, but handwritten ones? Total disaster. Smudged scans and sloppy cursive turned into gibberish.
• GPT Saves the Day: When Tesseract choked, I brought in OpenAI’s GPT API. It’s shockingly good at deciphering trade details—like “50 shares of AAPL” scrawled in a corner. Not flawless, but a game-changer.
• Last Resort: For the really illegible stuff (think doctor-level handwriting), I set up a fallback: the system emails you the raw PDF. You can squint at it yourself and figure it out.

It took a ton of tweaking, but I finally got it reliable enough to be useful.

The Tech Stack

Here’s the rundown of what powers Politichook.com:

• Backend: Python with Flask—keeps things light and handles OCR and API calls.
• OCR: Tesseract—decent for typed text, less so for handwriting.
• AI: OpenAI GPT API—steps in to decode tricky filings.
• Frontend: React—makes the site quick and user-friendly.
• Hosting: AWS—EC2 for the server, S3 for storing PDFs, and SES for emails.

Nothing over-the-top—just practical tools that work.

Pricing Tiers

Here’s how I’ve priced Politichook.com to fit different needs:

• Free ($0/month): Perfect for curious investors
  • ✅ Track 1 random Congress member
  • ⏱️ Delayed notifications
  • ❌ No member selection
• Bronze ($2.99/month): For focused investors
  • ✅ Track 1 Congress member of your choice
  • ⚡ Real-time notifications
  • 👍 Member selection
• Silver ($5.99/month): For active investors
  • ✅ Track up to 4 Congress members
  • ⚡ Real-time notifications
  • 👍 Member selection
• Gold ($12.99/month): For serious portfolio strategists
  • ✅ Track up to 20 Congress members
  • ⚡ Real-time notifications
  • 👍 Full member selection

The free tier uses delayed notifications to keep costs low (emails add up!), while paid tiers give you real-time alerts and more flexibility.

Wrapping Up

That’s the story of Politichook.com so far. It’s been a wild ride—figuring out OCR, leaning on AI, and piecing it all together—but it’s working, and it’s already made my trading life easier. If you’re into tracking Congress members’ stock trades or just want to peek at what they’re buying, check out Politichook.com. Let me know what you think—I’d love to hear your feedback!