About the project

This site, washingtonpost.com's U.S. Congress Votes Database, is a deep database of every vote in the United States Congress since the 102nd Congress (1991). It lets you browse votes in a variety of ways -- both in aggregate and for individual members of Congress.

Browse the database by drilling down to a particular Congress (e.g. 109th Congress) or particular member (e.g. 109th Congress senators).

This site publishes an RSS feed of recent votes by each member of Congress, and a feed of the most recent votes in both chambers. See the RSS page for full details.

This site is updated several times a day. However, there is a short delay between a vote in Congress and its appearance on the official Congress Web sites, and that delay is reflected on this site.

Methodology

The data for washingtonpost.com's U.S. Congress Votes Database is taken directly from several official Internet sources:

• House vote data comes from the Web site of the Clerk of the House of Representatives.
• Senate vote data comes from the Web site of the Senate.
• Member biographical information, including birth dates and hometowns, comes from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Member gender information comes from Women in Congress site and the Women in the Senate page.
• Representatives' district information comes from the Library of Congress' THOMAS site.

For each congressional vote in each chamber beginning with the 102nd Congress (1991), the Post has assembled detail and summary information about that vote and the members who took part. In addition to displaying the details of every vote, washingtonpost.com calculates a majority position for Republicans and Democrats, if one exists.

The Post uses additional sources for certain types of summary information. For the vote totals by region, regional definitions from the U.S. Census Bureau are employed. For totals by "Baby Boomer" status, the Post defines Baby Boomers as those born between the end of World War II (Aug. 1, 1945) through Dec. 31, 1964, inclusive. Vote totals by astrological sign are calculated using each member's date of birth.

Statistics on most-voted on bills include votes in both the House and Senate for a two-year Congress. Late-night votes are defined as those occurring between midnight and 7 a.m.

Finally, this site is a work in progress and will be expanded over time. If you have ideas on how to improve it, please contact us via the e-mail addresses in the following section.

Credits

This site was created by Adrian Holovaty of washingtonpost.com and Derek Willis of The Post, with design by Brian Cordyack and research assistance by Mackenzie Morgan. Please direct any questions about the site to washingtonpost.com's Tools Team.