GVPT 473 : Legislatures & Legislation

Web page created by Gerri Foudy, Social Sciences Team, UM Libraries
Instructor: Dr. Eric Uslaner

The University of Maryland Libraries have many resources that will help with research for your GVPT 473 class. If you need additional information, please contact Gerri Foudy, the Public Policy Librarian, or speak with a Reference Librarian at McKeldin Library's Government Documents Desk.

When accessing subscription databases from off-campus, you will be prompted to enter your last name and the 14-digit number on the back of your UM student id card.

Table of Contents

• How a Bill Becomes a Law
• Secondary Sources (News, background information, analysis, etc.)
• Library Catalog (Finding books, government documents, and more)
• Primary Sources (Legislation and other documents, hearings, reports, etc.)
• Roll Call Votes
• Public Opinion Sources
• Key Players
• U.S. Elections and Voting Research Guide
• Other Research Guides
• Citation Guides

Secondary Sources

• CQ Weekly
  Weekly legislative news and analysis, full text from 1983 to the present.

• CQ Researcher
  Full-text coverage of the CQ (Congressional Quarterly) Researcher publication from 1992 to the present.

• National Journal Group's Policy Central
  Full-text, searchable database of the National Journal Group's publications (National Journal, Hotline, Congress Daily, Almanac of American Politics) plus markup reports, public opinion data, and an archive of television campaign ads with streaming audio and video.
  

• Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports Search Engine (Free Resource)
  The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is the public policy research arm of the US Congress. It issues about 3,000 briefs, reports, short issue papers and longer position papers per year, but it does not make its reports available to the public. However, it cannot prevent members of Congress from giving them out individually and some government agencies from posting reports they find relevant. Perhaps 1000 of these reports have become available on the web.
  http://2act.org/p/576.html

• CQ Congress Collection
  Historical analysis of members of Congress, their legislative voting behavior, interest groups, and their interactions in crafting public policy. An advanced member search allows the user to search for members by various demographic fields.
  

• Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1945-
  Sessional compilation of articles from CQ Weekly, coverage of actions, votes, presidential statements, and public laws. It includes the annual CQ Vote Studies, significant bills and resolutions, key votes, and roll call votes.
  LOCATION: MCKREF STKS
  CALL NUMBER: JK1.C66

• C-SPAN Congress Site (Free resource)
  Congressional directory, congressional votes library, and issues and legislation sections.
  http://www.c-span.org/resources/congress.asp

• Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe
  Mostly full-text access to US and international newspapers, journals, wire services, and news transcripts including the Washington Post and the New York Times.

• Lexis-Nexis Congressional
  Go into the "Inside Washington" section for access to Roll Call, The Hill, and Section A of the Washington Post and into the "Members" section for biographical information on individual members of Congress, including key votes, floor statements, committee assignments, financial disclosures, and campaign finance information.

Library Catalog

Search the UM Libraries catalog, for books and documents on your topic available through the UM Libraries. Start with a "words anywhere" search.
Example: Superfund AND history
Example: Civil Rights Act AND hearings

You can also use the catalog to find out whether the Libraries subscribe to a particular journal. Go into the journals search (at the top of the catalog page) and do a "title beginning with search" for the journal title, NOT the article title.
Example: Legislative Studies Quarterly

Primary Sources

• Lexis-Nexis Congressional
  Comprehensive access to US legislative information including legislative histories and the CIS index of congressional publications from 1970 to the present, including congressional hearing testimonies and the Congressional Record.. A separate index, less exhaustive, is also available for previous congressional publications (1789-1969).

• GPO Access: United States Congress (Free Resource)
  Recent legislative history sources plus the Congressional Record Index and History of Bills from 1983 forward, and links to committees' and caucuses' home pages.
  http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

• US House of Representatives (Free resource)
  Offical site with committee information, bill summaries and status, texts of bills and public laws, roll call votes, and calendars.
  http://clerk.house.gov/

• US Senate (Free resource)
  Offical site with calendars and schedules, roll call votes, and floor activity descriptions.

• Thomas (Free Resource)
  Library of Congress site with recent legislative history sources.
  http://thomas.loc.gov/

• Lexis -Nexis Academic Universe
  Go into the "Legal Research" section for access to case law, codes, and regulations.

• Congressional Budget Office (Free Resource)
  Provides the Congress with analyses needed for economic and budget decisions and with the information and estimates required for the Congressional budget process. Includes full-text online documents such as briefs, letters, studies, reports, technical papers, and testimony.
  Search for CBO publications.
  http://www.cbo.gov/

• General Accounting Office (GAO) Reports (Free resource)
  The GAO is the audit, evaluation, and investigative arm of Congress and publishes reports, testimony, and legal decisions on a daily basis.
  Find GAO Reports.
  http://www.gao.gov/audit.htm

Roll Call Votes

• US House of Representatives (Free resource)

• US Senate (Free Resource)

• C-SPAN Congressional Votes Library (Free Resource)

• Congressional Roll Call (Annual publication)
  LOCATION: McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
  CALL NUMBER: JK1 .C6635

• CQ Congress Collection
  Key vote analysis.

Public Opinion Sources

When accessing subscription databases from off-campus, you will be prompted to enter your last name and the 14-digit number on the back of your UM student id card.

• iPOLL (Roper Center)
  This databank is a comprehensive, up-to-date source for questions asked on U.S. nationwide public opinion surveys since 1935. It provides question wordings, response percentages, and full survey-level citations. RoperExpress, a data access tool for on-demand downloading of data in the Roper Center collection that are in ASCII or SPSS portable formats, is also available.

• Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe
  Go into "Reference" and click on "Polls & Surveys" for information from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. Includes sources in opinion polling such as Gallup, Harris, Roper; ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC; Los Angeles Times, New York Times, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal.

• Gallup Brain
  Searchable database of the Gallup Poll since 1935 plus "current Gallup Poll News Service articles that feature the latest in-depth poll analyses and replicas of news stories and press releases linked to the surveys."
  

• National Journal's Policy Central
  Go into "Poll Track."

• American Public Opinion Index. Louisville, KY: Opinion Research Service, 1981 -.
  Index to opinion data contained in companion microfiche American Public Opinion Data.
  LOCATION: (Index) MCKREF STACKS, (Microfiche) MCKPER MFICHE
  CALL NUMBER: (Index) HM261.A463, ((Microfiche) HM261.A4632

• Gallup Poll. New York: Random House, 1972 -.
  Gallup opinion poll summaries, 1935/1971, 1972/1977, and annual volumes from 1978 on.
  LOCATION: MCKREF STACKS
  CALL NUMBER: HN90.P8G35

• Harris Poll. Los Angeles: Creator's Syndicate, Inc., 1988 - .
  Issued weekly; polls on a wide range of subjects.
  LOCATION: MCK FOLIO (Latest issues in MCKPER CURPER)
  CALL NUMBER: HM261.A211

• Polling the Nations
  A compilation of questions and responses from more than 12,000 national, state, local and special surveys, conducted by 700 polling organizations in the United States and 70 other countries from 1986 through the present.

Interested Groups and Individuals

• CQ Politics in America
  Profiles of all the current members of the U.S. Congress. Information includes biographical data, committee assignments, election results, CQ Key Votes, interest group ratings, CQ Vote Studies, and contact information; campaign finance, partisan caucuses, standing committees; detailed descriptions of each member's congressional district as drawn after the 2000 census, including updated maps and voting trends; and the vote for president in each of the House districts.

• Washington Information Directory
  Contact information, descriptions, and organizational charts for over 10,000 federal, congressional, and state government offices, nongovernmental organizations, policy groups, and foundations. Ability to export contact information into letter templates and other formats, and to create your own profile of saved favorite documents, document history, and searches.

• Congressional Quarterly's Congressional Staff Directory. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, Inc.,
  Includes information on members, committees, staffs, and biographies.
  LOCATION: MCKELDIN REFERENCE STACKS (Older editions in McKeldin Periodical Stacks)
  CALL NUMBER: JK1012.C65

• Congressional Quarterly's Federal Staff Directory
  Includes information on staff in the White House, executive departments, independent agencies, quasi-official organizations, and biographies.
  LOCATION: MCKELDIN REFERENCE STACKS (Older editions in MCK Periodical Stacks)
  CALL NUMBER: JK6.F43

• Congressional Yellow Book: Who's Who in Congress, Including Committees and Key Staff. New York: Leadership Directories, Inc.
  Published quarterly.
  LOCATION: MCKELDIN REFERENCE STACKS
  CALL NUMBER: JK1010 .C68

• Ness, Immanuel. Encyclopedia of Interest Groups and Lobbyists in the United States. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2000.
  Includes information on group histories, current and future activities, finances, and bibliographies.
  LOCATION: MCKELDIN REFERENCE STACKS
  CALL NUMBER: JK1118 .N47 2000 vol. 1-2

• Political Advocacy Groups (Free Resource)
  Kathleen Fountain, a librarian at CSU-Chico, has developed a comprehensive listing of links to U.S. lobbying organizations, arranged by subject area.
  http://www.csuchico.edu/~kcfount/

• Political Science Resources: Think Tank Directory (Free Resource)
  "Think tanks" are policy research and advocacy organizations which usually have a political slant. This site from the University of Michigan Libraries gives an annotated list of links to think tank home pages. Most think tanks post research and position papers and other documents on the web.
  http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/psthink.html

• U.S. Government Manual (Free resource)
  "As the official handbook of the Federal Government, the United States Government Manual rovides comprehensive information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. It also includes information on quasi-official agencies, international organizations in which the United States participates, and boards, commissions, and committees."
  http://www.gpoaccess.gov/gmanual/index.html

• Washington Representatives. Washington, DC: Columbia Books, Inc., 2004.
  "A compilation of Washington representatives of major national associations, labor unions, governments, U.S. and foreign companies, registered foreign agents, lobbyists, lawyers, and special interest groups, together with their clients and areas of legislative and regulatory concern."
  LOCATION: MCKELDIN REFERENCE STACKS (Older editions in McKeldin Periodical Stacks)
  CALL NUMBER: JK1118.D581

• Zuckerman, Edward. Almanac of Federal PACs. Hedgesville, WV: Amward Publications, Inc.
  Published every two years. Includes information about every PAC which contributed $50,000 or more to congressional candidates during the election cycles.
  LOCATION: MCKELDIN REFERENCE STACKS (EARLIER EDITIONS IN MCK PERIODICAL STKS)
  CALL NUMBER: JK1991 .A744

Research Guides

• Finding Congressional Hearings
  http://www.lib.umd.edu/UMCP/GOV/hearings.html
• Finding Federal Legislative Information
  http://www.lib.umd.edu/GOV/legs.html
• Finding Federal Regulatory Information
  http://www.lib.umd.edu/GOV/regs.html
• Finding U.S. Government Documents in the University of Maryland Libraries
  http://www.lib.umd.edu/UMCP/GOV/basic.html
• Public Policy Research
  http://www.lib.umd.edu/MCK/GUIDES/pubpol.html
• Tapping the Government Grapevine : The User Friendly Guide to U.S. Government nformation Sources
  LOCATION: GOVDOC QCKREF
  CALL NUMBER: ZA5055.U6R63 1998

Citation Guides

• Citation Machine
• Citation Guidelines: Assembling a List of Works Cited in Your Paper
• Documentation Guidelines: Citing Sources Within Your Paper
• Brief Guide to Citing Government Publications
• Reading Legal Citations

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