LibGuides: U.S. Congress: Getting started with research

Research Sources

CQ Magazine
[formerly CQ Weekly]
Comprehensive, non-partisan news and information on Congress, politics and public policy from 1983 to the present.
CQ Researcher
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Explores a single "hot" issue in the news in depth each week.
HeinOnline
Provides full-text access to an extensive collection of modern and historical legal periodicals and monographs including documents on international and foreign jurisdiction, U.S. treaties, U.S Supreme Court, U.S. Attorney General, and more. The format is image-based, presenting the exact page image and complete contents of the original materials.
Military & Government Collection
Current news pertaining to all branches of the military and government, this database offers a thorough collection of academic journal articles, primary documents (speeches, letters, text of important government documents such as acts and treaties) in U.S. history. Provides cover-to-cover full text for nearly 300 periodicals and indexing and abstracts for nearly 400 titles.
Nexis Uni [formerly LexisNexis Academic]
Nexis Uni™ features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an intuitive interface that offers quick discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
ProQuest Congressional: U.S. Serial Set Digital Collection
A collection of materials published in a “serial” fashion by and for the use of Congress covering almost all house and senate reports and documents published since 1817. These include House and Senate Journals (until the 1950s), committee and conference reports related to and those not related legislation, Presidential messages to congress, executive branch publications, Statistical Abstract of the US (1879 on), Budget of the US, treaty items, and materials from various non-governmental entities as well.
ProQuest Regulatory Insight
Provides researchers with workflow solutions to facilitate research tasks associated with administrative law. Offers U.S. federal administrative law histories for the period 1936-2021 organized by federal statute and Executive Order.
ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the United States
The ProQuest StatisticalAbstract of the United States is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political and economic conditions of the United States.

Financial Disclosure reports, Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives

ICPSR database of U.S. Congressional Historical Statistics, 1789-1989

Vital statistics on Congress, Brookings Institute

VoteView - Realtime Nominate ideology and related dated, from UCLA Department of Political Science

Biographic Directory - U.S. Congress, 1774 - present
Search by name, state, party, year, Congress, or position.
Congressional Directory
A print copy of the latest edition is available at the service desk on the 3rd floor, Government Publications JK1011 A32

The Congressional Directory is the official directory of the U.S. Congress, prepared by the Joint Committee on Printing (JCP). It presents:
• Short biographies of each member of the Senate and House, listed by state or district.
• Committee memberships, terms of service, administrative assistants and/or secretaries, and room and telephone numbers for Members of Congress.
• Lists officials of the courts, military establishments, and other Federal departments and agencies, including D.C. government officials, governors of states and territories, foreign diplomats, and members of the press, radio, and television galleries.

According to the U.S. Code (44 USC 721), the Congressional Directory is made available during the first
session of each new Congress. Subsequent to delivery of the printed 1997-1998 Congressional Directory, the JCP established the practice of producing periodic online interim issues to ensure the public's economical access to current Congressional information. The frequency of these online revisions will be determined by the volume of changes submitted for incorporation. No printed counterpart will exist for these online publication revisions.

There are a number of agencies supporting the work of the Legislative Branch use to fulfill their role in the government, some of which are listed below:

One place you may always receive help with any government information research is Government Information Online (GIO) where librarians across the United States will assist you.

Congress.gov
Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. It is presented by the Library of Congress (LOC) using data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Publishing Office, Congressional Budget Office, and the LOC's Congressional Research Service.
Govinfo
govinfo is a service of the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO), to free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.

It is in this database you will find full text to hearings, reports, bills, laws, along with all kinds of other legislative materials.
GovTrack
A free research tool to identify Congressional issues, status of legislation, Member information including voting records.
LLSDC's Legislative Sourcebook
he Legislative Source Book is a project of LLSDC's Legislative Research Special Interest Section. It was first begun as a printed spiral-bound book in 1992 and was launched as an Internet product in the year 2000 (see the Internet Archive or the Library of Congress collection of Archived Web Sites)

Books in the Collection

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-2005 by Printing Congress (U.S.) on Joint Committee (Produced by); U. S. Government Printing Office Staff (Created by)
Call Number: Docs Reference 3rd Floor Y 1.1/7:108-222
ISBN: 9780160731761
Publication Date: 2006-01-11
Congress A to Z by David R. Tarr (Editor); Ann O'Connor (Editor); CQ Editors
Call Number: Docs Reference Desk 3rd Floor JK1021 .C554 2003
ISBN: 9781568028002
Publication Date: 2003-01-01
Politics in America 2014 by January Layman-Wood; CQ Roll Call Staff
Call Number: Reference 1st Floor JK1012 .C63 2014
ISBN: 1452277834
Publication Date: 2013-07-15