Research Guides: POL 324: Congressional Politics: Home

Politics Librarian

Jeremy Darrington

Contact:

jdarring@princeton.edu
Firestone Library
A-13-J.1
http://scholar.princeton.edu/jdarring

609-258-3209

Subjects: Politics, Politics - American, Politics - Comparative/International Relations

Profiles of Members of Congress and Their Districts

Almanac of American Politics
Issued biennially, the Almanac provides in-depth analysis and comprehensive profiles of every congressional district, state, governor and member of Congress. Previous years are in print at JK1012 .A44 (Firestone) back to 1972.
Politics in America
Biennial reference on with detailed bios on each Member and congressional district. Online back to 2006; in print at JK1010 .P64 (Firestone) back to 1982.
CQ Congress Collection
Find Congressional roll call votes by topic, session, or CQ key vote; view and compare members of Congress by biographical and demographic characteristics; compare members’ voting records; view interest group and state and member voting alignment and party unity scores; and see Supreme Court case summaries relating to the structure and powers of Congress. Data can be exported to Excel. 79th Congress (1945)-present.
My Congressional District (Census.gov)
Quick tool for exploring the most recent demographic, social, and business data collected by the Census Bureau for individual congressional districts.
Social Explorer
You can get up-to-date Congressional District demographic data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS). It's available freely online from Census (see the link above), but you might find Social Explorer's interface easier to use if you want to select a custom set of variables from among the many the ACS makes available. Select Tables in the left nav, then choose ACS 1-year estimates, select Congressional District under geography, and then choose variables of interest.

CQ Voting and Elections Collection This link opens in a new window
- Senate general elections (by state 1914–; by county 1968–)
- Senate primary elections (by state 1920–; popular nonbinding vote for some states 1908-1912)
- House general elections (by Congressional district 1822–)
- House primaries (by Congressional district 1994–)
- Voting trends for offices or geographies; incumbent and open seat races; special elections; split districts; party control; candidate electoral histories; party switches; and more (generally 1968–)

Speeches, Public Statements, and Other Media

Voxgov This link opens in a new window
Provides access to real-time documents, publications, press releases, and social media posts from all branches, offices, agencies, and elected officials of the U.S. Federal Government. Extensive search and filtering options; most content is from 2000-present. Special requests for bulk downloads can be arranged.

Project Vote Smart: Public Statements
Large collection of public statements and press releases from public officials and candidates, both nationally and at the state level and for various offices.
DCInbox: Congressional e-Newsletters
Collects, archives, and makes publicly available every official e-newsletter sent by sitting members of the US Congress since 2010. Updated in real time, as members of Congress send constituent messages, and provides researchers with a systematic set of texts to examine the strategic choices that legislators and their staff make in crafting the content. Data available in .csv by month.
Princeton Corpus of Political Emails
This corpus contains emails from candidates running for state and federal office, political parties, and other political organizations like PACs.
Contains more than 400,000 emails from 3,000+ senders since Dec. 2019. You can search the corpus online or request access to the dataset via a webform.

See also this related downloadable corpus of more than 110,000 candidate and committee emails gathered by journalist Derek Willis over the past few years.

Congressional Documents & Committees

Proquest Congressional This link opens in a new window
Best starting point for Congressional documentary research. Full text publications of the U.S. Congress such as hearings (including previously unpublished hearings), committee reports, documents and prints (1824+); Congressional Research Service reports (1916+), Bills & Laws (1789+), the U.S. Serial Set (1789+), the Congressional Record and its predecessors (Annals of Congress, Register of Debates, and Congressional Globe; 1789+).
CQ.com This link opens in a new window
Combines extensive reporting on Congress with legislative tracking and detailed coverage of Congressional Committees (including committee rosters, all open markups, and hearings. Also provides access to a wide variety of congressional and related documents, including Congressional Research Service reports (back to 1978), bill text, witness statements, member profiles, Congressional press releases, GAO reports, and more. Most coverage goes back to 1994.

Congress.gov Committee Profiles
Profiles for each Congressional committee, with links to the current website, membership lists, hearings, and documents.

Congressional News & Analysis

CQ.com This link opens in a new window
Combines extensive reporting (including all of CQ Roll Call) on Congress with legislative tracking and detailed coverage (with transcripts) of Congressional Committees, all open markups, and hearings. Also provides access to a wide variety of congressional and related policy documents, including Congressional Research Service reports (back to 1978), bill text, witness statements, member profiles, Congressional press releases, GAO reports, and more. Most coverage goes back to 1994.
POLITICO Pro This link opens in a new window
POLITICO Pro provides real-time policy reporting in agriculture, budget & appropriations, campaigns, cybersecurity, defense, education, eHealth, energy, financial services, health care, labor & employment, sustainability, tax, technology, trade, and transportation.
NationalJournal.com This link opens in a new window
Provides comprehensive politics and policy information including the National Journal, Almanac of American Politics, Markup Reports, Congress Daily and Poll Track.

The Hill
Major news source covering Congress, U.S. politics, and policy debates.
Roll Call
Major news sources covering Congress and Capitol Hill (also included in our CQ.com subscription, see above). You can also browse archived issues.
CQ Magazine
A weekly news magazine featuring in-depth reporting on public policy, politics, congressional legislation, and elections extending back to 1983, including: a complete wrap-up of news on Congress, the status of bills in play, behind-the-scenes maneuvering, committee and floor activity, debates, and all roll-call votes.