** Click the icon for a video (with audio included) on finding souces of information on a member of Congress

• Biographical & committee information of members (from the beginning of the video)
• Demographic information about Congressional districts (from minute 3:40)
• Database searching for issues of concern to a member and election campaign strategies from state newspapers, national news magazines and U.S. government sources (from minute 9:15)
• Web sources for issues of concern to a member and election campaign strategies (from minute 26:15)

A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents & Debates, 1774-1873.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lawhome.html

Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/bdsds/bdsdhome.html
Materials include journals of Congress, resolutions, committee reports, proclamations, treaties, and other proceedings of Congress.

How Our Laws Are Made. September 1999.
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/lawsmade.toc.html
Reflects recent changes in Congressional procedures.

Who Are Your Elected Officials in Maryland?
http://mdelect.net/

Find Your Candidates & Elected Officials [in any state]
http://www.votesmart.org/election_congress.php
First, find your 9-digit ZIP code. Use this site to identify those who represent you in the U.S. Congress and your state legislature. Search for legislators alphabetically or by State Delegation. Includes Washington and home district addresses, e-mail addresses, phone and fax numbers, brief background information, committee assignments, political action committee contributions. Lists members of Senate and House committees and subcommittees and key Congressional leaders and officers.

Access by State:
Congressional Directory at http://capwiz.com/c-span/dbq/officials/

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The Almanac of American Politics: The Senators, the Representatives and the Governors: Their records and election results, their states and districts.
1974- [biennial] Latest on Reserve.
Overview of the year in politics, as a nation and regionally. Sections on the House, Senate, and presidency, and significant issues, including elections. Political overview of each state, including members' performances, stands on issues, voting records, interest group ratings.

U.S. Senate Home Page.
http://www.senate.gov

Who's Who in Congress. [biennial] Latest kept at Reference desk.
Members' of Congress biographies, staff, committees, voting studies, interest group ratings, % election votes, key votes chart; TV guide to floor action.

Congressional Staff Directory. 1964- [annual]
Members' of Congress biographies, staff, committees; state information; governors; Congressional districts; counties & cities & their districts.

Congressional District Profiles [U.S. Census Bureau]
http://factfinder.census.gov

• Up-to-date maps and datasets of demographic information available by Congressional District
• Once on the American FactFinder homepage, look for the Congressional District Summary File
• Quick Tables feature allows creation of a statistical table of up to 10 demographic characteristics for a Congressional District; Detailed Tables feature supports 50 characteristics
• Also search for fact sheets on a city or county, including demographic, social, economic, and housing statistics on this site

Congressional Districts in the 2000s: Portrait of America. 2003
Profiles of each district in a state, providing a description of the district including demographic, economic, and educational characteristics, key election returns and party affiliations.

Consolidated Federal Funds Report, 1993-current
http://harvester.census.gov/cffr/asp/Reports.asp
Monies coming into a state/county from the federal government.

Federal Election Commission
Campaign Finance Reports and Data http://www.fec.gov/
Full text access to financial disclosure reports filed by House, Senate and Presidential campaigns, Parties and PACs from 1993 to the present. Keyword access to reports filed from 1997 to date.

Campaign Finance Law Resources http://www.fec.gov/law/feca/feca.shtml
Full text access to campaign finance laws, regulations and campaign guides for corporations, candidates and committees.

Opensecrets.org: The Online Source for money in Politics Data
[Center for Responsive Politics]
http://www.opensecrets.org
Money behind Presidential and Congressional candidates; state money maps; lobbyist's spending by name and industry; news alerts.

Campaign Finance Reform [Brookings Institution]
http://www.brook.edu/gs/cf/cf_hp.htm
Essential cases, legal and policy materials on campaign finance.

Campaign Finance [Hoover Institution]
http://www.campaignfinancesite.org
Sections on history, current structure, reform proposals and legislation, Supreme Court cases, and who's giving to whom.

Campaign Finance Information Center [Investigative Reporters and Editors]
http://www.campaignfinance.org/
Excellent access to campaign finance information at the state level.

National Institute on Money in State Politics
http://www.followthemoney.org/
Tracks campaign contributions for each state.

LLSDC Legislative Source Book [Law Librarians' Society of Washington, DC]
http://www.llsdc.org/sourcebook/
Offers finding aids for locating current legislation, including titles such as, Federal Legislative History Research: A Practitioner's Guide, Internet and Online Sources of Legislative and Regulatory Information, and links to Web sites of State Legislatures, State Laws and State Regulations.

Roll Call : Congress.org
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

• Find how a member of Congress voted on a bill in the current session by entering a zipcode or or previous sessions by entering member's name and a subject, if desired.

Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet
http://thomas.loc.gov

• Library of Congress's gateway to current legislators & legislation
• For a guide to using Thomas see Introducing...THOMAS!
• To check sponsors of bills, Browse Bills by Sponsor on the home page of Thomas
• Access Roll Call Votes for House and Senate the from 101st Cong. (1989) to current
• To check for floor activity by member and by subject of bill, search the Congressional Record [101st Cong. to current]
• To trace the legislative history of a bill, search Bill Summary & Status [93rd Cong. to current]
  

Open CRS:Congressional Research Reports for the People
http://www.opencrs.com/

CRS Reports are prepared by staff of the Library of Congress Congressional Research Service and are intended to provide an overview of the legislative topics being addressed by the U.S. Congress. They are meant to provide fact-rich, unbiased, non-technical background information on policy issues.

This Web site allows keyword searching of and provides summaries for over 12,600 CRS Reports that are available through various repositories sponsored by organizations such as National Council on Science and the Environment, Federation of American Scientists, and Thurgood Marshall Law Library at University of Maryland School of Law.

2ACT is another service that provides access to about 16,000 research reports.
University of North Texas Libraries includes CRS reports back to 1990.

Roll Call Online: The Newspaper of Capitol Hill Since 1955.
http://www.rollcall.com/
Includes news features, commentary, election previews, policy briefings, and a review of legislative sessions.

C-SPAN.org: Your Online Resource for Public Affairs.
http://www3.capwiz.com/c-span/home/
See ISSUES for key votes on important legislation.

Congress.org [Capitol Advantage]
http://congress.org/
Current awareness site for issues before Congress. Lists alerts (from organizations), letters, bills , votes, and organizations by issue topic.

Political Information: A Search Engine for Politics, Policy, and Political News
http://www.politicalinformation.com/index.html

• Indexes the contents of over 5000 websites covering political topics, updated every 2-3 weeks
• Political news section drawn from online political sections of several dozen authoritative news sources and updated every 2 hours
• Sites-by-Category section of over 1700 links arranged under 220 categories
  

RealClear Politics
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

• Political commentary, news, polls, and election analysis pulled from columns, magazine articles, and the Web
• Particularly useful during an election year for coverage of candidates running for Congress with links to many reputable information sources

Public Agenda Online:The Inside Source for Public Opinion & Policy Analysis
http://www.publicagenda.org

• Nonpartisan briefing on policy issues, supplemented by polling data, and a list of concerned PACS and advocacy groups
• Click on Issue Guides for information on "hot" issues including facts, trends & statistics, pros & cons, major players, and public opinion
  • Links to related sources of information on an issue such as polling organizations

Washington Post's Campaign Toolbox

RealClearPolitics Election 2008

NPR: Election 2008

CNN Election Center 2008

New York Times Election Guide 2008

Federal Election Commission
http://www.fec.gov
Post-election financial summaries of candidates, parties, and PAC's, and searchable databases on individual, committee, and candidate contributions.

Congressional Races
http://www.opensecrets.org/races/index.asp
This site from opensecrets.org allows for comparison of candidates on campaign finance, including interest group support. Also provides links to congress.org for the issue positions of candidates.

Federal Election Reform Network [The National Commission on Federal Election Reform]
http://www.reformelections.org/

• Commission chaired by Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter
• Final report, Task Force reports, and Commission hearings, can be found at http://www.reformelections.org/ncfer.asp
• Some of the topics covered on this site include improving voter participation, Help America Vote Act, spoiled ballots and voting machines

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Ghost Hunting: Searching for Maryland Legislative History
[Michael Miller, Maryland State Law Library]
http://www.lawlib.state.md.us/Legislativehistory.html

Academic Search [Ebsco]
Search for citations, abstracts and some full text articles from magazines and journals in various disciplines including Political Science, Law and History.

Note: The truncation symbol in this database is *. For example, environment* = environment, environments, environmental

To search for articles on legislators:

• It is important to search Academic Search [Ebsco], Military & Government Collection [Ebsco], and Social Sciences Abstracts [Ebsco] together by clicking on Choose Databases tab, selecting the appropriate databases and clicking on [Continue].
• Then click on the Advanced Search tab and search lastname firstname (e.g. bush george, cardin ben*).
• Academic Search indexes scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals, news magazines, and the New York Times
• Social Sciences Abstracts indexes a broad selection of journals in the Social Sciences
• Military & Government Collection indexes publications like FDCH Political Transcripts, Press Releases, & Congressional Testimony and Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents

LexisNexis Academic
For Major Newspapers: Click on News tab. Select sources:Major World Papers or US Newspapers & Wires . Provides full text of major newspapers including New York Times (1980 - ) and Washington Post (1977 - ) and Baltimore Sun (last 6 months only).

Note: For best results when searching a member of congress, search by the given first name and the nickname (e.g. Ted Kennedy or Edward Kennedy) Depending on the uniqueness of the name, you may have to AND the name with other words like massachusetts or ma or senat! in the full text field.

Note: The truncation symbol in this database is !. For example, For example, senat! = senate, senate's, senatorial

Note: Once in the News search. Search for your words in the Headline and Lead Paragraph. Extend the time period searched to longer than previous 3 months, if desired. Once you have a list of results, you may want to click on Sort by: Relevance to change the arrangement of results so that the "best" articles are listed first, instead of the "most current".

For State/Local Newspapers & News Services:Click the icon for a video (with audio included) on finding articles in LexisNexis from state newspapers. This is a good place to start when researching less prominent members of the U.S. Congress or state-related issues that might not be covered at the national level.
Note: For most comprehensive results when searching a member of congress, search by the given first name and the nickname (e.g. James Jeffords or Jim Jeffords)

National Newspapers
Provides full text of 5 newspapers including The Sun (Baltimore) (1990 - ), Christian Science Monitor (1988 - ), Wall Street Journal (1984 - ), and Washington Post (1987 - ).

Note: The truncation symbol in this database is *. For example, environment* = environment, environments, environmental, etc.

Note:To limit a search to The Sun (Baltimore), from the main search screen, click on select multiple databases next to the words News - Proquest Newspapers, deselect Proquest Newspapers, select The Sun.

Note: To search multiple papers, such as The Sun (Baltimore) and the Washington Post, from the main search screen, click on the words select multiple databases. Uncheck Proquest Newspapers, check off the Washington Post and The Sun. Click on Continue and type in your search topic.

America: History and Life
Search for abstracts of articles from scholarly journals in History and social sciences on the Congress from an historical perspective.