AP U.S. G&P: Landmark Legislation Research Paper: Websites

How to Find Congressional Votes from the website of the United States Senate.

NOTE: Some bills are voted on by roll call vote and some by voice vote:

•  A roll call vote occurs when each senator votes "Yea" or "Nay" as his or her name is called by the clerk, who records the votes on a tally sheet.
• A voice vote occurs when the presiding officer states the question, then asks those in favor to say "yea" and those against to say "no." The presiding officer announces the results according to his or her best judgment. In a voice vote, the names of the senators and the tally of votes are not recorded.

Some web resources you can check:

• Congressional Record Index covers the 104th-117th Congresses, 1995-2022. Note: some entries may be incomplete.
• Congressional Record, Browse by Date  is a record of proceedings for the 56th-117th Congresses, 1899-2022.
• History of Bills: 98th-117th Congresses, 1983-2022    
• Senate Votes provides roll-call votes from 1989-2022

TIP: The easiest way to find the voting records on your act in GovTrack.us is a Google search in which you combine the title of your act with AND site:govtrack.us

For example: 

Search your specific legislative act by name combined with the phrase site:gov OR site:edu  [See note below regarding edu addresses]

For example: Taft Hartley act site:gov OR site:edu

Note that universities may allow their students to use the edu domain. If there is a tilde (~) in the address, it may be a personal student page which is not monitored by the institution. In this case it may not be a reliable site.

Britannica Academic Articles in this online subscription database may include links to recommended websites.

SweetSearch, A Search Engine for Students searches only credible websites approved by research experts. 

Ballotpedia Encyclopedia of American Politics is the digital encyclopedia of American politics and elections. Our goal is to inform people about politics by providing accurate and objective information about politics at all levels of government.

Commonly Requested U. S. Laws and Regulations is a topical listing of some of the best-known U.S. laws and regulations; from USA.gov)

Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information.

• Congressional Record Proceedings and Debates of the U.S. Congress 101st Congress to present (After each day that Congress is in session, the proceedings are printed in the Congressional Record (CR) and available the following morning...Daily Congressional proceedings may include legislative activity by the chambers and their committees, Member remarks, communications from the president, and more...)

Congressional Record Archives  Records of Congress from 1789 to present from The Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania.

U.S. Constitution Annotated From the website Justia whose mission is to advance the availability of legal resources for the benefit of society.)

PLEASE NOTE: Do not copy and paste complete citations from web pages if given. NoodleTools cannot generate footnotes from copies and pasted citation.

To cite a website:

• Remember: a website is an online source you discover through Google (or another search engine) as opposed to a subscription database you access through the library.
• Websites can contain many kinds of sources including:
  • reference articles, ebook content, journal articles, primary sources, newspaper articles, speech transcripts, images, etc.
• If you can determine it, select the source type from the list under Website in NoodleTools.
• If it's not clear what type of source it is, choose Webpage.

If you would like help evaluating a source, see (or email) Mr. Padgett, Ms. Taylor, or Mr. Previti.
We're happy to help!