Government

This Library of Congress research guide provides users with resources related to the Declaration of Independence.

"The Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777. This document served as the United States' first constitution."

This Library of Congress research guide provides users with resources related to the U.S. Constitution.

This Library of Congress research guide provides users with resources related to the Bill of Rights.

"Constitutional Amendments 1-10 make up what is known as The Bill of Rights. Amendments 11-27 are listed here."

"The Federalist Papers [are] a series of 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison between October 1787 and May 1788. In lobbying for adoption of the Constitution over the existing Articles of Confederation, the essays explain particular provisions of the Constitution in detail. For this reason, and because Hamilton and Madison were each members of the Constitutional Convention, the Federalist Papers are often used today to help interpret the intentions of those drafting the Constitution."

The American Presidency Project, hosted by UC Santa Barbara, is a free online searchable database of presidential public documents.

The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) is a nonpartisan corporation that sponsors and organizes debates for U.S. presidential and vice presidential candidates. Users can access brief histories of debates dating back to 1858 along with transcripts of select events. The site links to C-SPAN’s video library for footage of recent debates.

This National Archives site provides access to executive orders issued prior to January 20, 2017.

This link leads to the U.S. Senate site, which hosts a list of every presidential veto from 1789 to the present. Click on the name of the president to see specifics on each veto.

This link leads to a list of the current members of the Presidential Cabinet, hosted by the White House's official website.

This official White House site provides access to White House briefing statements.

This Library of Congress website provides links to the official websites of several Executive Branch government agencies.

This Legal Information Institute site, through Cornell Law School, provides access to historic U.S. Supreme Court decisions, organized by topic.

The Oyez Project at Chicago-Kent is a multimedia archive devoted to the Supreme Court of the United States and its work. It aims to be a complete and authoritative source for all audio recorded in the Court since the installation of a recording system in October 1955. The Project also provides authoritative information on all justices and offers a virtual reality Tour of portions of the Supreme Court building, including the chambers of some of the justices.

This Library of Congress research guide provides information on the history or the judiciary, the federal court system and court opinions and decisions.

The purpose of this site is to provide information from and about the Judicial Branch of the U.S. Government.

FactCheck, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, monitors "the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases."

NewsNow is a British-based service that aggregates articles about national elections and related subjects. The site links to over 40,000 news outlets from around the world and is updated every few minutes.

Search for state and national representatives by name or zip code. Information for each elected official includes voting records, biographies, contact information, issue positions, interest group ratings, public statements and campaign finances.

This official U.S. government website answers many common questions about voting in the U.S, and includes information on choosing candidates, the presidential election process, as well as voting and election laws and history.

"Voting America encourages users to think about US political history by allowing two types of comparison. Animations of a single type of map--say, measuring the winner of presidential elections at the county level--allow for comparisons across time. Users can also explore a single election by looking at patterns across a number of variables, including the percentage of votes won by parties, the winner of a given district, or the distribution of votes across the United States."

Access live proceedings of Congress (the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate).

The official site of the U.S. Congress.

The official directory of the U.S. Congress, which contains short biographies of each member of the Senate and House, along with committee memberships, terms of service, administrative assistants and/or secretaries, and room and telephone numbers for Members of Congress.

This service matches users' zip codes to their congressional district and then links them to their Representative's website and contact page.

"The legislation collection includes records for every bill and resolution introduced in the U.S. Congress since 1973 (93rd Congress), and every amendment introduced or submitted since 1981 (97th Congress)."

This site provides a video presentation, from the official U.S. Congress website, explaining how a bill becomes law.

This site provides contact, biographical, and statistical information for U.S. Senators. There is also an organizational chart that shows the relationship between the Senate leaders and officers that manage the flow of legislative and administrative business in the Senate.

Official website of the Alliance Party

Official website of the Constitution Party.

Official website for the Green Party

Official website of the Libertarian Party.

Official website for the Democratic Party

Official website of the Republican Party.

Official website of the Working Families Party.

While the most popular U.S. political parties are linked above, there are many other political parties in the United States. This link leads to a full, updated list of them, hosted by Wikipedia.

This site, provided by the Federal Election Commission, allows users to search for contributions made by individuals using contributor name, city, state, zip code, principal place of business, date, and amount. You may also search by candidate and committee for campaign finance reports.

The Center for Responsive Politics is a nonpartisan, independent, and nonprofit research group, tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy.

This site allows users to search for campaign finance and lobby reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission.