Follow the flow › Step 9 of 16 · Voting path
9. Floor debate and vote
The whole House or Senate debates the bill and votes. Each member's yes or no is written down in a roll call. Both chambers must pass the exact same words. Then the President signs it, or vetoes it. Congress can override a veto with two thirds of both chambers.
Who holds the money or the vote here?
Each member holds one vote. Leaders decide when votes happen.
How often does it happen?
Continuous while Congress is in session (usually Monday or Tuesday to Thursday or Friday, with recesses around holidays and in August).
Where the records come from
Federal data is the same for everyone. When you pick a state, the state and local rows are the places to look for your state. "Have now" means PSI Sci already collects it; "Planned" means we list the source but do not collect it yet.
| Level | Source | Format | How often | On PSI Sci |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Federal | Clerk of the House roll call votes (XML) PSI Sci collects this (house-votes) | XML | daily in session | Have now |
| Federal | Senate roll call votes (senate.gov; Voteview copy) PSI Sci collects this via Voteview (senate-votes) | XML/CSV | daily in session | Have now |
| State | State legislature journals / Open States votes tracked as todo rows <state>-votes | API | daily in session | Planned |
| County | Commissioners court minutes (votes) | each meeting | Planned | |
| City | City council minutes (votes) | each meeting | Planned | |
| District | How your district's member voted (roll calls by member) member pages | XML | daily in session | Have now |
| ZIP | (use your district) | - | - | Not used |
See these sources as searchable records (rendered live).
See it on PSI Sci now
Variable names
| Variable | Federal | State | County | City | District | ZIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
roll_call_number | roll_call_number | roll_call_number | roll_call_number | roll_call_number | roll_call_number | roll_call_number |
floor_vote_yea | fed_floor_vote_yea | st_floor_vote_yea | cnty_floor_vote_yea | cty_floor_vote_yea | dist_floor_vote_yea | zip_floor_vote_yea |
floor_vote_nay | fed_floor_vote_nay | st_floor_vote_nay | cnty_floor_vote_nay | cty_floor_vote_nay | dist_floor_vote_nay | zip_floor_vote_nay |
member_vote | fed_member_vote | st_member_vote | cnty_member_vote | cty_member_vote | dist_member_vote | zip_member_vote |
vote_date | fed_vote_date | st_vote_date | cnty_vote_date | cty_vote_date | dist_vote_date | zip_vote_date |
vote_result | fed_vote_result | st_vote_result | cnty_vote_result | cty_vote_result | dist_vote_result | zip_vote_result |
IDs (like bioguide_id, bill_id, piid, zcta) have no prefix because they already say what they point to.