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American Politics

A guide to statistics, data, and documentary sources in American politics available to researchers at Princeton University.

Best Starting Points

Bills & Legislation

Partisanship and Ideology

Members of Congress

Congressional Committees

Membership

For aggregate and trend data on committees and staffers, see Vital Statistics on Congress on the Best Starting Points tab. For historical listings of members and staffers, see also the KnowWho Directory link on the Members tab and the Database of Congressional Historical Statistics on the Best Starting Points tab.

Staff Levels and Funding

See also detailed House and Senate reports on expenditures, which includes salaries and spending by committees and Members' offices.

Hearings

The best source for transcripts of hearings is ProQuest Congressional on the Best Starting Point tab. You can also find hearings text for recent years on Congress.gov and Govinfo.gov.

Congressional District Data

Congressional Districts

Congressional Documents & Reports

For congressional documents, I recommend starting with ProQuest Congressional on the Best Starting Points tab.

Congressional News & Analysis

Reference and Archives