Congressional Voting Records

April 10, 2008 10:55 PM

Can I get Congressional Voting Records in an easily parsed format?

I've found this, but I'd rather not have to navigate my way back and forth through pages. Where would one get the raw data? I don't really have a preference for format as I figure I can write something to parse it as I need. I would prefer one big file over a separate file for each vote, but I'm not too picky at this point.

I don't really know what I want to do with the data yet, but I'd like to be able to sift through it all more easily. Thanks.

posted by SAC to Law & Government (4 answers total)

Here's an API.

Alternatively, go here and start wget-ing... though it looks like you'd like to avoid some of that. Looks like the structure makes some sense. Shouldn't be too hard to scrape.

(You can even get a breakdown by starsign. - invaluable, I'm sure...)
posted by pompomtom at 11:09 PM on April 10, 2008

Best answer: Forget all that official Congressional or media jazz, go straight to the people who need this stuff professionally: political scientists.

Keith Poole's data page. Scroll down a bit for roll call data.
posted by shadow vector at 11:13 PM on April 10, 2008

Or, if you can rip the text out of pdf....

go here
2007 version

actually... ignore my previous answer... this one has a nice copyable table in it....
posted by pompomtom at 11:14 PM on April 10, 2008

Response by poster: pompomtom and shadow vector, thanks for both your answers. I'm still looking through them, but so far, both the API and the Keith Poole links look exactly like what i was looking for.
posted by SAC at 11:23 PM on April 10, 2008