Data Collection

The sources below will be helpful for the data collection for Research Design #2.

American Presidency Project

• The American Presidency Project, at UCSB, is an archive of documents based on the presidency, including addresses and speeches, public papers, and Executive Orders; election data; an audio and voice archive; and other data.
• To access the archives, choose Documents on the upper right side of the screen.
  • Inaugural Addresses
  • State of the Union Addresses

Federal Elections Commission

• The FEC governs how money is spent for federal elections and tracks contributions accordingly.
• Campaign Finance Reports and Data is where you will find contribution information about candidates running for any national political office, going back to 1999.

LexisNexis Academic

• In addition to general news, LexisNexis Academic offers full-text of federal and state court cases, including Supreme Court decisions, opinions and briefs.
• To find court cases:
  • Choose Legal from the top bar.
  • On the right, choose Federal & State Cases
  • Enter your Search Terms
  • Select Sources
    • Federal & State Cases, combined will search for both federal and state cases
    • U.S. Supreme Court Cases, Lawyer's Edition will give you pertinent information for Supreme Court Cases

LexisNexis Congressional

• Use LexisNexis to search by keyword for bills starting with the 1969-70 session.
• To get the full-text of bills:
  • Choose Legislative Histories, Bills & Laws on the left
  • Choose the tab Keyword Search or Get a Document

LexisNexis Statistical

• LexisNexis Statistical compiles data from a variety of governmental and private sources about a variety of topics, including public opinion, U.S. Census, health, and many more.
• To find data:
  • Choose Search Tables Base Edition
  • Do a quick keyword search to see if any tables match your keywords. Don't change any of the limiters at first, because this might severely limit your results

Roper Center Public Opinion Archives

• The Roper Center is run through MIT and offers public opinion archives on a variety of political, economic and social issues including Presidential Approval Ratings.
• To find data:
  • Choose Data Access
  • From this page, choose either Presidential Approval Ratings, or Topics at a Glance for data.

THOMAS, Library of Congress.

• THOMAS includes legislative information from the U.S. Congress.
• To get the full-text of bills:
  • Search by keywords or bill number to find federal legislation about your topic. You can search the current or past sessions.
  • When you find a bill, click on Bill Summary & Status for the following:
    • Text of Legislation
    • Cosponsors
    • Related Bills
    • Major Congressional Actions - this is where you will find the voting records, and passage/failure