Drumbone_API / Legislator

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Deprecation Notice

This API is deprecated in favor of the Real Time Congress API. It contains most legislative information that Drumbone does. Drumbone may be deactivated in the near future.

Introduction

Information about a legislator in Congress. There is only one method available:

  • legislator - Returns one legislator document, referenced by one of its unique keys.

There is no "legislators" method - Drumbone currently only supports searches on individual legislators, not lists of them. For that functionality, use the Sunlight Labs Congress API.

Unique keys

  • bioguide_id - This is the ID used by the Congressional Biographical Directory, and is the closest thing the community has to an "official" ID for legislators. The bioguide ID for a legislator can be found using the Sunlight Labs Congress API.

  • govtrack_id - This is the ID number that GovTrack assigns to each legislator. It can also be found in the Sunlight Labs Congress API.

Sections

basic

Except for the first three, all fields in the "basic" section are taken straight from the Congress API's legislator resource.

in_office
true or false
chamber
"house" or "senate"
last_updated
The last time this data was pulled from the Sunlight Labs Congress API.
bioguide_id
--
govtrack_id
--
first_name
--
nickname
--
last_name
--
name_suffix
--
district
--
state
--
party
--
title
--
gender
--
phone
--
website
--
twitter_id
--
youtube_url
--
congress_office
--
sponsorships

Some statistics relating to a legislator's sponsorships and cosponsorships of bills and resolutions.

Important: Use of this data is subject to GovTrack's bulk data license, and this data's accuracy and recency is tied to GovTrack's.

All fields in this section apply to the current session of Congress.

sponsored
The number of bills this legislator has sponsored.
sponsored_enacted
Of the number sponsored, how many were enacted.
cosponsored
The number of bills this legislator has cosponsored.
cosponsored_enacted
Of the number cosponsored, how many were enacted.

The remaining fields all correspond to a field above, with the value for the average legislator in this legislator's chamber of Congress.

average_sponsored
--
average_sponsored_enacted
--
average_cosponsored
--
average_cosponsored_enacted
--
contracts

Information about federal contract dollars granted within the legislator's district. This data is taken from the USASpending.gov API, and can be reused under the same (very open) terms that USASpending.gov offers it.

All fields in this section apply to one specific fiscal year, which is specified in the "fiscal_year" field.

fiscal_year
The fiscal year that all of this data applies to.
total_amount
The total of all federal contracting dollars in this district.
total_contractors
The total number of contractors in this district.
last_updated
When USASpending.gov says they last updated their database.
top_contractors
An array of 10 objects containing the name, rank, and amount of the top 10 contractors within the legislator's district.
earmarks

Information about earmarks granted (not just requested) within a legislator's district. This data is calculated from spreadsheets published by the Taxpayers for Common Sense.

This data is subject to Taxpayers' terms of use, which includes a prohibition on commercial use.

All fields in this section apply to one specific fiscal year, which is specified in the "fiscal_year" field.

fiscal_year
The fiscal year that all of this data applies to.
total_amount
Total earmark dollars allocated within this legislator's district.
average_amount
Average earmark dollars allocated to a legislator within this legislator's chamber.
total_number
Total number of earmarks allocated within this legislator's district.
average_number
Average earmark dollars allocated to a legislator within this legislator's chamber.
last_updated
The date that Taxpayers for Common Sense published the spreadsheet this information is calculated from.

Full Example