Research Guides: Data & Statistics Portal: The US Congress

Congress - general information

ProQuest Congressional and Executive Base
Covers 1789- with full text from 1980s -. Provides an index of congressional reports, documents, prints, bills and the Congressional Record, as well as executive orders and presidential proclamations.

For 1980s forward, full text is available for many documents. Includes bill tracking reports, public laws, the Statutes at Large, and the United States Code Service, The Federal Register, and the Code of Federal Regulations. Also contains biographical and financial information, voting records, committee rosters, charters, and schedules for committees and subcommittees. Check with the Law Library or ask us for hearings and documents not available online.

Daily Kos Election Resources
Database of Congressional Historical Statistics
Compiles information at the level of the individual legislator on biography, party membership, elections, and committee membership. Legislative data include roll call votes for each member, roll calls coded by issue, roll call text, presidential requests for legislative action and roll calls held in response. Data in delimited, STATA, SPSS, and SAS formats. 1789-1989.
Vital Statistics on Congress
Brookings Vital Statistics’ provides useful data including data on the composition of Congress, its formal procedure (such as the use of the filibuster), informal norms, party structure, and staff. Tables cover member demographics, congressional elections, campaign finance, committees, staff and operating expenses, workload and productivity, action on the federal budget, polarization and voting alignments.

Legislative Data

Comparative Agendas Project
Available through the University of Texas, this project provides coded series including Congressional hearings, public laws, roll call votes, Congressional Quarterly articles, budget authority, Presidential State of the Union speeches, Executive Orders, Supreme Court cases, a sample of New York Times articles, and Gallup’s Most Important Problem public opinion series. Data in .csv; 1945-2013.
Congressional Bills Project
The Bills Project provides information about more than 400,000 bills introduced in the U.S. Congress, currently 1947-2008, along with extensive information about each bill's progress and sponsor. It is the digitized source for information about the 200,000 bills introduced between 1947 and 1972.
LegiScan - National Legislative Datasets
Great resource for identifying the status of current legislation by state. Bulk download of bills and legislative tracking information for Congress and the 50 states.
Legislative Explorer
Interactive visualization for exploring patterns of lawmaking in Congress from the 93rd Congress (1973)- 114th Congress (2015-16). Includes information about the legislative histories, topics and sponsors of more than 250,000 bills and resolutions. Can be filtered by individual member, by party, by topic, and more. Bulk data downloads available.
Measures of Significant Legislation
Find the dowload of datasets related to the following article: Clinton and Lapinski 2006 “Measuring Legislative Accomplishment” AJPS. Dataset estimating the legislative significance of all enacted public laws from 1877-1994 (more than 37,000).
PIPC Roll Call Datasets
From the University of Oklahoma, this provides information on roll call votes from the House (83rd Congress/1953-present) and Senate (91st Congress/1969-present) utilizing an extensive coding for procedural vote type, party unity, Southern/Northern coalitions, presidential position.
ProPublica US Congress Bulk Data on Bills
These datasets contains metadata for every bill introduced, including sponsors, cosponsors, committee actions, floor votes and a summary, along with the data of the last modification to the bill. From 1973 -
United States House of Representatives. Resumes of Congressional Activities
1-2 page reports of session activities from 1947 -
United States Senate. Resumes of Congressional Activity
1-2 page summaries of session information from 1947 -
VoteView

Members of Congress

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
Find brief bios of members of the U.S. Congress from 1774 to the present.
Black Americans in Congress Historical Data
Women in Congress
Find bios of former women Members of Congress.
Congressional Scandals (1979-2018)

University Libraries

Research Guides

Data & Statistics Portal

Congress - general information

Legislative Data

Members of Congress

Committees