Prof. David Menefee-Libey's
Course-related links

Resources for Politics 3: Introduction to American Politics

Resources for Politics 30: The US Congress

The House, its committees and party caucuses:

» The US House of Representatives

» House of Representatives list of committees with links

» The office of the Speaker of the House

» The House Democrats' office

» The House Republicans' office

The Senate, its committees and party caucuses:

» The US Senate

» List of Senate committees with links

» The Senate Democratic Caucus

» The Senate Republican Conference

Legislative Branch support agencies:

» Library of Congress

» The Congressional Research Service (all reports archived here)

» Congressional Budget Office (CBO)

» Government Accountability Office (GAO), for policy and program evaluations

» Government Publishing Office (GPO), for government publications

Official directories and profiles:

» Directory of the House of Representatives, by member

» Directory of the Senate, by member

» The Clerk of the House's directory

Unofficial directories, profiles, voting records and campaign finance reports

» C-SPAN's Congressional Chronicle

» Project Vote Smart

» The Sunlight Foundation, for campaign finance reports at all levels of U.S. government.

The legislative process:

» The Guide to the House legislative process

» The House Rules Committee's procedural manuals

» The Guide to the Senate legislative process

To find information about specific legislation or activities within Congress:

» Federal Legislative Information on the Internet, including current and recent legislative activity, bills submitted, floor speeches, committee hearings and reports

» The Pro Quest "Congressional Compass", from Lexis-Nexis, which allows searches for laws, bills, hearings, legislative histories, the daily Congressional Record, etc. (You must be logged onto the Claremont network for this link to work.

» GovTrack is a fairly new Congress-watching site developed by an open government group called Civic Impulse.  It is very good, and has an easier interface than Thomas and ProQuest.

» The Government Publications Office's "Federal Digital System", which also allows search for bills, documents, hearings, reports, laws, and other U.S. Government Documents (look on the right-hand side of the page for links).

» The GPO even has the text of many Unanimous Consent Agreements in the Senate. Look to the Calendar of the particular day the legislation came to the floor.

Candidates and elected officials:

» Project Vote Smart, the best source for candidate biographies, issue positions (including group ratings of candidates), and campaign finance at all levels of American government

» Vote 411, The League of Women Voters' non-partisan resource page with information about candidates, parties, issues, legislation, and policy at the federal, state, and local level.

» Profiles of candidates from the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance reform advocacy group.

» Politics1.com, a commercial site with good links on candidates and elections state by state.

Political party organizations:

» The Democratic National Committee.

» The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (supporting U.S. House of Representatives candidates).

» Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (supporting U.S. Senate candidates).

» Republican National Committee.

» National Republican Congressional Committee (supporting U.S. House of Representatives candidates).

» National Republican Senatorial Committee (supporting U.S. Senate candidates)

» Greens

» Libertarians

Campaign finance and other money in electoral politics:

» The Federal Election Commission (FEC), which collects information about contributions and expenditures. (The FEC formerly enforced federal campaign finance regulations, but it now does none of that.)

» Project Vote Smart, the best source for candidate biographies, issue positions (including group ratings of candidates), and campaign finance at all levels of American government.  Follow the links to the Campaign Finance section.

» Open Secrets, with extensive and accessible data on candidates, parties, donors, etc.  A project of the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance reform advocacy group.

» The Center for Public Integrity, another campaign finance advocacy group, also has an excellent set of resources which include explanations of the issues.  There is also some data from the 50 states.

» The MapLight Foundation tracks relationships between campaign contributions and federal legislation.

» The National Institute on Money in State Politics has contribution and spending data for all states that require reporting.

» The California Fair Political Practices Commission has campaign finance reports for all California candidates and party organizations.

» The Campaign Finance Institute is the best source of information and analysis on campaign finance law and practices.

Domestic media covering US campaigns and elections:

News digest sites

» The Drudge Report, the conservative digester that started it all.

» RealClearPolitics, a more inclusive but still conservative news digester.

» Memeorandum, the best liberal news digester

» Crooks and Liars, the best liberal video digester

» Rough and Tumble, an excellent daily digest of California political and policy news.

Websites covering campaigns

» RedState, the most popular conservative blog.

» The Corner conservative blog hosted by The National Review.

» TownHall, one of the most influential conservative websites.

» DailyKos, the premiere liberal/Democratic blog, with running commentary by the site owner and a group of authors and links to press coverage and other miscellany.

» TalkingPointsMemo, running moderate/liberal news site and blog run by Josh Marshall.

» There are zillions more, but you should find them yourself and develop your own views about which are most useful.

(The online editions of) Newspapers

» Lexis-Nexis, the tool for tracking down newspaper stories and quotes from yesterday or 20 years ago.

» The Los Angeles Times, the local establishment liberal paper.  Good coverage of the presidential election.

» The New York Times, the national establishment liberal paper.

» The Orange County Register, the local somewhat-less-establishment conservative alternative.

» Roll Call, coverage mostly of Congressional elections from a "Capitol Hill is the center of the universe" newspaper.

» The Hill, the other "Capitol Hill is the center of the universe" newspaper.

» The Sacramento Bee's, coverage of California politics and elections from the state capital.

» The Washington Post, from an establishment liberal perspective.

» The Nation/Politics section of the Washington Times, a conservative counterpoint to the post. Not necessarily the establishment

» The Washington Examiner, competing for status as the establishment conservative newspaper in the nation's capital.

Magazine-style coverage (longer stories, less day-to-day news, more features, more opinion)

» The American Prospect, hoping to be the keepers of the liberal/progressive flame.

» The National Review, keepers of the Reagan conservative flame.

» Slate.com, the MSNBC-owned magazine with a (mostly) liberal slant.

» The Weekly Standard, the neo-conservatives' major outlet.

Watchdogs

» FactCheck, a project for checking the "facts" presented by the major campaigns and parties, run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.  One of many such projects out there, but worth looking at once in a while.

» Snopes, the Urban Legends Reference Pages on politics, a fun resource for checking out tall tales about the candidates.

Voting, Polls, and Election Returns:

Voting information and analysis

»The National Association of Secretaries of State.  The SoS's are the ones responsible for setting up and overseeing each state's voting system and vote counts. There is general information on voting here, as well as links to each state's SoS page.

»The National Association of State Election Directors, affiliated with NASS, has links to every state's voting and election pages.

» www.CanIVote.org, a web site set up by the National Association of Secretaries of State with state-by-state and often local information about voter registration rules and deadlines, location of polling places, requirements to cast votes, and how to vote absentee or vote early.

»ElectionLine, a voting reform clearinghouse.
 

Collections of polls

»Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections has data and maps for presidential election throughout history.  (Note that he built his maps with Red as the Democratic Party color and Blue as the Republican Party color before the opposite standard usage was established in the media in 2000.)  The author also has an excellent blog on Electoral College issues.

» RealClearPolitics is among several sites that aggregate polls for Presidential, Senate, House and other elections.  They do it very well.

»ElectionProjection.com is the page for a slightly more analytic project.  Since 2003, the author has presented the results of his formula for predicting each state's presidential outcome based on previous elections, unemployment rates, presidential approval, and current polls.  The author also offers a conservative blog.

»Electoral-Vote.com reports daily updates of state-level polls for presidential and Senate contests, and offers good links for other polling-related pages.  The front page offers an Electoral College map based on the most recent polls for each state.

» Nate Silver's "538" blog has become the best-known of the polling analysis sites.

» The Princeton Election Consortium site is also very good in its analysis of polls, and often challenges Silver's analysis.

Past Election Results

»Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections has data and maps for the current presidential election as well as all prior elections.  (Note that he built his maps with Red as the Democratic Party color and Blue as the Republican Party color before the opposite standard usage was established in the media.)  The author also has an excellent weblog on Electoral College issues.

» The Roper Center has an archive of past election returns and exit polls going back to the 1980s.  You have access to it from within the Claremont Colleges system, but you must create a login ID and password.

This year's returns: national

»The National Association of State Election Directors, affiliated with NASS, has links to every state's voting and election pages, where you can often find live state-level returns.

» The U.S. Elections Project, run by Prof. Michael McDonald at the University of Florida, is an excellent site with turnout and results for past and present elections, including separate reports for early and absenteee voting.

» The Early Voting Information Center at Reed College posts research and a blog on early voting practices and results.

»CSPAN's page promises to post results on election night.

This year's returns: California

»Live election returns for all races and ballot propositions from the California Secretary of State's office (a phenomenal site on Election Night!)

This year's returns: Los Angeles County

»Los Angeles County election results from the Registrar/Recorder - County Clerk's office.

Area newspapers

» The Los Angeles Times

» The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

» The San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

» The Claremont Courier

Federal legislative branch (Note: these links duplicate some found above in Resources for Politics 30: The U.S. Congress)

» Federal Legislative Information on the Internet, including current and recent legislative activity, bills submitted, floor speeches, committee hearings and reports

» The Pro Quest "Congressional Compass", from Lexis-Nexis, which allows searches for laws, bills, hearings, legislative histories, the daily Congressional Record, etc. (You must be logged onto the Claremont network for this link to work.

» GovTrack is a fairly new Congress-watching site developed by an open government group called Civic Impulse.  It is very good, and has an easier interface than Thomas and ProQuest.

» The Government Publications Office's "Federal Digital System", which also allows search for bills, documents, hearings, reports, laws, and other U.S. Government Documents (look on the right-hand side of the page for links).

Federal executive branch

» Directory of federal government departments and agencies.

» The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) that elaborate on legislation.

California government sources:
State government links page on education policy
Home page for the CA Department of Education
Superintendent of Public Instruction (a statewide elected office)
California Board of Education (policy-making body appointed by Governor)

California and Los Angeles media with education policy interests
Rough and Tumble, a California politics and policy daily news aggregator
EdSource (the best)
L.A.School Report
Capital & Main