December 19, 2020

A Beginner's Guide to Congressional Data for 2021

Data-rich resources from around the web on Congress and the Federal Government.

Congressional issues are always important, but they are poised to be in the spotlight next year. President Elect Joseph Biden has stated that while he will use executive orders aggressively, there are many issues that require action from the legislative branch. Given a global pandemic, frayed relations with major power competitors, and mounting social problems, 2021 may be an unusually busy legislative year.

Here is a guide to the many sources of data about legislators, congress, and government at large. Most of these resources will be most helpful for software developers and data scientists trying to make sense of the complex sociotechnical system that is the United States federal government.

Legislators

The United States GitHub account maintains a bevy of valuable resources (several more are cited throughout this post). There are two useful links below of JSON files detailing current members of Congress, and another with a list of their official social media accounts.

https://theunitedstates.io/congress-legislators/legislators-current.json

https://theunitedstates.io/congress-legislators/legislators-social-media.json

Misconduct

Govtrack maintains an extremely useful database of misconduct and alleged misconduct by Members of congress. Here is their GitHub page:

Popular Congressional APIs

ProPublica and Sunlight offer two useful APIs for accessing a wide range of congressional information.

ProPublica Congress API

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ProPublica Congress API

Sunlight Congress API

Historical Data

MIT professor Charles Stewart maintains a valuable collection of data resources here:

Charles Stewart’s congressional data page

Public Domain Photos of Members of Congress

Need photos of members of congress? Look no further:

FEC Finance Data

Financial contributions are a perennially important data source for understanding Congress:

Legislation and Congressional Information

GovInfo.gov is one of the most useful resources for finding information related to Congress, including bills, hearings, and more:

GovInfo.gov also has a bulkdata page available here: https://www.govinfo.gov/bulkdata

The United States github account has excellent tools for obtaining bulk records of bills and the Congressional Record, available here:

The Federal Register is the official journal of the federal government and contains a number of important notifications, proposals of rule changes and other public notices. There is currently a beta site for searching and browsing it available here: