The New York Times on Thursday rolled out its latest political application program interface, just as members of the 111th Congress are settling into their new offices.
The Congress API will enable developers to keep close eye on their elected representatives with data on specific congressional roll call votes and members' most recent positions on roll call votes. The API also provides lists of House and Senate members in specific years, as well as biographical and role information about specific members.
(Credit:
The New York Times)
The tool is one of a series of APIs the Times is developing to let its readers dissect the data it uses in its reporting. In October, it released an API to track campaign donations. The newspaper also released a movie review API and is working on several more, including a Times Best Sellers tool.
The information for the Congress API comes from the House and Senate Web sites, along with the Library of Congress site Thomas.gov and is updated throughout the day while Congress is in session. The tool works with information from other publicly available data sources like the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress and GovTrack.
The biographical data for House members goes as far back as 1983, while the data for House votes goes back to 1991. Developers can find information for Senate votes from as early as 1989 and information on individual Senators dating back to 1947.
Politicians are still slowly learning how to reach out to their constituents on the Internet, but that doesn't mean citizens can't keep tabs on Washington online. The latest new-media tool from The New York Times provides an embeddable widget that allows people to analyze campaign contributions made to the presidential candidates.
This graph is an example of the type of analysis possible with the New York Times' new API. Click graphic for larger version.
(Credit: New York Times)The campaign finance tool is one of the application program interfaces the Times is developing to let its readers dissect the data it uses in its reporting. The data for this API comes straight from the Federal Election Commission, though the campaigns are only required to report contributions of more than $200. As the campaigns file their last three FEC reports, the API data will be updated.
The API enables users to look at overall donation figures as well as donations broken down by state or ZIP code. Users can also search for contributors either by first name, last name, or ZIP code.
The Times promises to update the campaign financing tool, and it is working on other APIs as well, including ones for restaurant listings, congressional votes, and movie reviews.
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