Follow the flow › Step 6 of 16 · Voting path
6. Elected officials
The winners take office. In Congress there are 435 House members (more for bigger states) and 100 Senators (2 per state). The President leads the agencies. Your state has its own legislature and governor, and your county and city have commissioners, council members and mayors.
Who holds the money or the vote here?
Elected officials hold the public's trust and their votes on bills.
How often does it happen?
New Congress starts January 3 after each federal election; state and local terms vary.
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 | congress-legislators (public domain, from official sources) PSI Sci collects this (fed-legislators) | JSON | weekly | Have now |
| Federal | Congress.gov members / api.congress.gov | API (free key) | daily | Planned |
| State | Open States people data (state legislators, all states) PSI Sci collects this (st-legislators) | bulk CSV | weekly | Have now |
| County | County website: commissioners court / board of supervisors tracked as todo rows us-county-websites | page | as changed | Planned |
| City | City website: mayor and council | page | as changed | Planned |
| District | Find your representative (House) / your legislators (Open States) linked from every page | page | as changed | Have now |
| ZIP | ZIP to district lookup (Census ZCTA-to-district file) | bulk | after redistricting | Planned |
See these sources as searchable records (rendered live).
See it on PSI Sci now
Variable names
| Variable | Federal | State | County | City | District | ZIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
member_id | member_id | member_id | member_id | member_id | member_id | member_id |
bioguide_id | bioguide_id | bioguide_id | bioguide_id | bioguide_id | bioguide_id | bioguide_id |
fec_candidate_id | fec_candidate_id | fec_candidate_id | fec_candidate_id | fec_candidate_id | fec_candidate_id | fec_candidate_id |
office | fed_office | st_office | cnty_office | cty_office | dist_office | zip_office |
party | fed_party | st_party | cnty_party | cty_party | dist_party | zip_party |
district | fed_district | st_district | cnty_district | cty_district | dist_district | zip_district |
term_start | fed_term_start | st_term_start | cnty_term_start | cty_term_start | dist_term_start | zip_term_start |
term_end | fed_term_end | st_term_end | cnty_term_end | cty_term_end | dist_term_end | zip_term_end |
IDs (like bioguide_id, bill_id, piid, zcta) have no prefix because they already say what they point to.