Something (amongst other things!) that Nancy wrote got me thinking: she was talking about the new House rules in H Res 6 and had linked the temporary PDF (because THOMAS hadn't yet caught up); and she then copied some parts of H Res 6
In case some are scared off by the pdf.
Now, I don't want to come as patronising (Oops, too late. Ed) but I got to wondering how much MyDDers and Kossacks were into the nuts and bolts of finding out stuff about Congress online.
Because, for a start, the vast majority of academic papers, interest group reports and a whole lot else are PDFs.
So I thought I'd share some of my (I laughingly call) expertise on the subject.
THOMAS
This is basic and essential.
While there are search pages, your fundamental search is based on bill number and Congress.
Using Firefox, the technique of pulling up a durable link (beware temporary links on THOMAS: they have the telltale temp in the URL!) for a bill or res whose number you know is as follows:
- Put http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:hr1: (the base URL) in the address bar of the browser and pull up the page.
- Repeat several times.
- Once the autocomplete dropdown menu brings up this URL as top URL when you type t in the address bar, you're set.
- Next time you need a bill/res, type t and press enter to get up the base URL; adjust the final element of the URL to read the Congress number and the bill/res number you want; do not include punctuation.
- Press enter and you're there.
Thus, for example, to get H Res 6, you bring up HR 1, and adjust the URL to get http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?
d110:hres6:
Note that omitting punctuation, and retention of the colons, are essential.
From the bill page, you can get to URLs for every other element of the bill.
If you don't know the bill number - basically, you're fucked. Google, the THOMAS search engine involves a zillion times the buggeration.
Getting the PDFs
There is no alternative to sheer accumulation; succinct file renaming; and file search.
Fortunately, even for those without entrée to the JSTOR system, there is a lot of stuff about. Google Scholar is your absolute banker here.
Most polisci material works in a turvy-topsy way: generally, polisci guys are (my impression!) only interested in Congressional material for the purpose of showing off their skills with the most outré forms of regression analysis.
But - in order to get to their fetish, they have to supply some old-time analysis of the phenenomena they wish to regress, and often give some descriptive stats, too.
Virtually all this material is PDF.
My solution, software-wise: I use Foxit as default PDF reader, and for those files it won't read (files served by scripts - from the GPO, for instance), I use Ghostcript.
(Ghostscript's navigation is also easier for docs in two-column format, or where graphics are heavily used.)
Acrobat Reader is a killer (for my little laptop), because it tries by default to read PDF files in the browser and unfailingly goes to 100% CPU usage in the process. Junking it was one of my better decisions.
(Neither Foxit nor Ghostscript allow PDF to be read in browser, thank God!)
Basic Texts - House
Your one-stop-shop for texts is the GPO site.
There are four levels of complexity:
Firstly, you have the House Rules and Manual. These can be browsed by rule, or, for a full download, the PDF comes in columns (Ghostcript indicated!). With the actual rules, you get what's called Jefferson's Manual - I've not looked into precisely what value that has, but I should have done!
For commentary, you go first to House Practice. Each topic has a chapter devoted to it which is individually downloadable in text (quick and dirty) or PDF (much easier to read, with footnotes and all). It gives an analysis at decent length, but without getting too bogged down in less important issues.
House Practice contains references to the three books of precedents, Deschler's, Cannon's and Hind's.
The precedent books go into far more detail on particular points; and include extracts from the Congressional Record of the requests for rulings and the rulings themselves.
The most recent precedent book is Deschler's.
Basic Texts - Senate
Again, one has the Rules and Manual.
Beyond that, the service is more limited than for the House.
The equivalent of House Practice is Riddick's. The main problems with this are that it is tediously repetitive (the same material appearing under several headings) and it does not have the text of rulings by the Chair, only references to the Congressional Record.
This is a real bugger: so far as I'm aware, even those plutocrats with Lexis access cannot get up CR online from before 1985. (For paupers limited to THOMAS, coverage starts in 1989.)
To follow up references in Riddick's, therefore, it's necessary to hump whole forests worth of dead trees (assuming you have access to a run of CR - which I don't).
Textbooks
I've mentioned before Barbara Sinclair's Unorthodox Lawmaking. At the risk of gushing, it's Number 1. (But then, perhaps that's an index of my naivety. Savvier critics, please chip in.)
Sinclair's book is priceless for its lack of interest in point-scoring theorizing (and math) and the detail of its analysis. It repays regular re-reading.
When I find another which is as good, I'll trumpet it.
What's New?
The media covers little of what goes on in Congress day by day, and what it does cover is mangled. It almost never gives bill numbers, and gives the most unhelpful descriptions of parliamentary manoeuvers.
Your starting point is the Daily Digest. This link pulls up the latest one; and previous ones are available on the CR page covering the day in question.
The good old DD is skimpy (it gives no details of bills introduced, for instance, just the numbers), but it's as good as it gets.
There are signs around the net that some are trying to fill this humungous gap; but a million from Soros and Friends could do wonders!