• Tracking and Monitoring Legislation: How to Find and Use Congressional Documents. 

• How to Research and Compile Legislative Histories: Searching for Legislative Intent

• Fundamentals of Federal Legal Research

• Also see our Congressional Deskbook

Capitol Learning Audio Courses

• Drafting Effective Federal Legislation and Amendments in a Nutshell

• Researching Federal Legislative Histories: Bills, Resolutions, Committee Hearings, and Committee Reports

• Researching Legislative Histories: Finding Legislative Intent in Bills and Committee and Conference Reports

• Researching Federal Legislative Histories: Statutory and Code Research

• Statutory Construction: A Primer on How to Read and Understand Statutory Text
   

• Federal Budget Links and Research Tools

• Glossary of Congressional and Legislative Terms

• Legal Reference and Research Tools

• Legislative History Reference and Research Tools

• Lobbying and Advocacy

• PACs

• Politics and Political News

• Regulatory Research Resources

Also see our essential Washington web sites

• Changing Senate Rules: The "Constitutional" or "Nuclear" Option, by Betsy Palmer, (RL32684) May 26, 2005 (pdf)

• Cloture: Its Effect on Senate Proceedings, by Walter Oleszek (98-780 GOV), March 7, 2005 (pdf)

• Cloture Attempts on Nominations, by Richard Beth (RS20801), Dec. 11, 2002  (pdf)

• Constitutionality of a Senate Filibuster of a Judicial Nomination, by Jay Shampansky (RL32102), June 14, 2005 (pdf)

• Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate, by Richard Beth (RL30360), March 28, 2003  (pdf)

• Senate Considerations of Presidential Nominations: Committee and Floor Procedure, by Elizabeth Rybicki (RL31980), May 24, 2005  (pdf)

• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 to Present - searchable database containing biographical information for all individuals who have served in the United States Congress and the Continental Congress. From the Library of Congress.

• Capitol Questions - Q&A about Congress from C-SPAN

• Center for Public Integrity - "nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization in Washington that concentrates on ethics and public service issues."

• The Coin-Operated Congress - from Mother Jones magazine

• Congress: Email your Senator and your Representative

• Contacting the Congress - member contact info from Juan Cabanela

• Common Sense Taxpayer Scorecard - from Taxpayers for Common Sense & TCS Action, "an independent taxpayer
  organization that works to cut government waste by reaching out to taxpayers from all political perspectives."

• Congress.org - find your reps, write to Congress

• Congressional Accountability Project - sponsored by Ralph Nader

• Congressional documents online

• Congressional Publications (including the Congressional Record) - from the GPO (also see Thomas below)

• Congressional Quarterly

• Congressional Research Service - WWW Accessible Reports - Univ. of Michigan

• CRS Reports - from open CRS

• Copyright Legislation -- New and Pending - from the U.S. Copyright Office

• Electoral College - from the National Archives

• Electoral College, Resources, References & Stories

• FirstGov.Gov  - "an easy-to-search, free-access website designed to give you a centralized place to find information from local, state, and U.S. Government Agency websites."

• How a bill becomes a law in the U.S. - flow chart version

• Legislative Indexing Vocabulary (LIV) - from the Library of Congress

• Speaker's Office

• THOMAS - U.S. Legislative Information on the Internet

• Today in Congress - committee schedules from the Washington Post

• U.S. House of Representatives

• U.S. Senate

• Votenet - transcripts, opposition research, contact information for state and federal legislators, and free campaign software, web sites, discussion forums and email for candidates.

• Vote Smart

• You Have Two Cows.  The government . . .
  

• Governing magazine

• Government - States from Hieros Gamos

• Governments on the WWW: United States of America

• Internet Prospector - links to incorporation records in 16 states and Secretary of State offices in 50 states and D.C.  Recommended

• Municipal Codes Online - from the Seattle Public Library

• The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws

• National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)

• Secretaries of State Contact Information - from a network of volunteers

• State and Local Governments - links from The Library of Congress

• State Fact Sheets - information on population, per-capita income, earnings per job, poverty rate, total number of jobs, unemployment rate, percent employment change, farm and farm related jobs, top export commodities, farm characteristics, and farm financial indicators. From the US Dept. of Agriculture

• Stateline.org - state-by-state information and news articles on state and local politics and policy.  Recommended

• StateSearch - A "service of the National Association of State Information Resource Executives [that] is designed to serve as a topical clearinghouse to state government information on the Internet."
  

Congressional Deskbook By Michael L. Koempel  and Judy Schneider Contributing Authors: Eugene Boyd, Peggy Garvin, Bill Heniff Jr., Henry Hogue The comprehensive guide to Congress, clearly describing the legislative and congressional budget processes in 15 chapters that discuss all aspects of Congress.

Congressional Directory Directory of the members of the US Senate and the US House of Representatives, with color photos, and fold-out map of Capitol Hill.   Updated annually.

Congressional Operations Poster," Information-packed 2-sided, color poster with select sections from the Congressional Deskbook. Back includes federal budget process flowchart and budget process glossary.

"Big Government," by Ev Ehrlich, hardcover (Warner Books 1998). "In the spirit of 'Wag the Dog', and with tongue planted firmly in cheek, a former Clinton Administration official pens an uproarious and wicked satire of the American political process."

"The Buying of the Congress: How Special Interests Have Stolen Your Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," Charles Lewis, Center for Public Integrity (Editor), hardcover (Avon 1998).   "[T]he result of a year-long investigation by the Center [for Public Integrity] into how Capitol Hill lawmakers respond to the most basic concerns of the American people. It shows, clearly and compellingly, how Congress has been warped—has allowed itself to be warped—by the powerful and monied interests that Wilson saw a century ago."

"United States Government Internet Manual," by Peggy Gravin (Bernan Press, 2007). "A solid, thorough, accessibly organized reference book of World Wide Web sites corresponding to countless institutions of the American Government, as well as state and local government information, and a special section of government information for numerous nations around the world from Albania to Zimbabwe. Solid, detailed descriptions of what each governmental web site has to offer as well as an index for quick and easy reference make Government Information On The Internet a first-class reference for anyone who has to look up specific facts relatively quickly." - Midwest Book Review

"Public Records Online, 6th Edition: The Master Guide to Private & Goverment Online Sources of Public Records," by Michael L. Sankey (Facts on Demand Press, 2006). The only Master Guide to online public record searching, The sixth edition details nearly 10.000 sites, both government agencies and private sources. This new edition is completely revised and updated.

"You Won - Now What? How Americans Can Make Democracy Work from City Hall to the White House," by Taegan D. Goddard and Christopher Riback. "'Americans entrust their government to novices,' Riback and Goddard remind us. 'Every November they elect a bunch of people who have never done this before.' You Won, Now What? offers practical tips on the task of governance, drawing upon real-life examples to illustrate how elected officials can do an effective job in their first--and in some ways most critical--days on the job. Their scope is broad--the authors consider state and local governments to be just as important as the federal government in maintaining quality of life for citizens--but the case studies keep the book from sliding into generalizations." Available for purchase in hardcover (Scribner, 1998) or paperback (Simon & Schuster, 1999)

"Washington," by Meg Greenfield [A] timeless classic on the ways and mores of our nation's capitol. With Washington, the illustrious longtime editorial page editor of The Washington Post wrote an instant classic, a sociology of Washington, D.C., that is as wise as it is wry. Greenfield, a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, wrote the book secretly in the final two years of her life. This title is available for purchase in paperback (PublicAffairs,2002)

(Title descriptions are from Amazon.com unless otherwise indicated.)

Quick DC Links - Washington Essentials

URL:   www.TheCapitol.Net/Research/legislat.htm   Last updated: August 31, 2010