Political Science: National
Sources for stuff on the Good Old U.S.A.
- US Census Bureau. The Census Bureau's website (data.census.gov) is a gold mine of information. Population, housing, age, income, education levels, and much else is here. For example, although often called the "White-est big city in the United States" 23% of the city's population is people of color, and 14% were born overseas. Of all residents under 65, 9.4% have a disability. Women make up 66% of the civilian labor force. The Median household income was $61,532, and 16.2% of the population lives in poverty.
- Women in Politics.(2019) A guide created by the PCC Library.
- Congressional Research Service Reports Congressional Research Service reports are reports written for members of Congress. They cover a wide range of issues, and are organized by topic.
- National Conference of State Legislatures A nicely-done website that can be used to generate ideas for reports (see the "News" tab), or guide you to more detailed websites about many issues (hunting, child-safety laws), etc., on the "Issues" tab.
- Public Agenda A good non-partisan (that is, they don't favor one party over the other) website that tries to get out information on all sorts of issues - for example: school reform and the federal debt. The "Issue Guides" give pro-con arguments on various subjects, such as the Right to Die, Abortion, and Immigration.
- Public Records of Local Governments Who's in jail? Who owns that piece of land? Who has a license to cut hair?
Impeachment
U.S. Government
- Organizations that support refugees in Oregon.
- Presidential Power. From the University of Washington School of law. Click on "Useful Reference" on the left side of the page and then look for headings of Executive Orders, Pardons, Impeachment, and others.
- USAspending.gov From the Office of Management and Budget, this site complies with a law requiring transparency in federal funding. Go to the "Summaries" page for starters. There are also tabs for the top recipients of federal money, and spending by state. In May 2019, the government of the state of Oregon had received $7.6 Billion dollars from the federal government. The Boeing Company received $25.8 Billion. Updated daily. (Thanks to Heidi Senior at the University of Portland Library.)
- Internet Snooping by Governments. (Big business, too.) Google's annual 'transparency' report on government requests for information and efforts to suppress internet content. (All governments, not just US) There are links to such requests by country. Most recent update goes to Dec 2018.
- Congress.gov Terrific compilation of stuff about bills, laws, committee hearings, voting by specific members of Congress, and other stuff too much to mention.
- Follow the Money with Maplight
A site that shows contributions made to elected officials. For the 2016 election, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, who basically was unopposed received $1.3 million in contributions, with $5,000 coming from the American Trucking Association, many healthcare companies and insurance companies, wind energy, unions, railroads. He is on the House sub-committees on Health and Trade. Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici got $849,000, mostly from Nike, Unions, American Crystal Sugar, and Home Depot. She is on the committees of Education and the Workforce and Science, Space and Technology, so the sugar contributions are curious. Much else can be explored here.
- Federal Digital System (fdsys) from the Government Printing Office. The comprehensive guide to all government publications, including committee hearings, code of federal regulations, and about anything else you can think of.
- Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States From Hoover to Clinton. These are papers and speeches as issued by the Presidents' Press Secretaries.
- United States House of Representatives ('Thomas' Website.) Find the text of bills, federal law, debates, and all things related to law-making.
- United States Senate History of the senate, oral histories, Senate traditions, and more.
- White House
The official website. Speeches, photos, and all sorts of stuff on the prez.
Videos on American Government
Films on Demand, a streaming video service has over 1000 videos on the American government. The most recent are from 2019. The link takes you to the whole list, but you can search the collection to narrow it down.
Laws and Court Cases
- Federal & State Cases
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From Lexis/Nexis.
- Federal & State Codes
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From Lexis/Nexis.
Magazine and Scholarly (Peer-reviewed) Article Collections
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new windowFull text for more than 4,500 scholarly social sciences, humanities, general science, education and multi-cultural journals. 3,700 are peer-reviewed.
- New York Times (Articles Only) This link opens in a new windowFull text searchable content from nytimes.com and New York Times blogs from 1980 to the present.
- US Major Dailies This link opens in a new windowFull text newspapers from five U.S. national and regional newspapers: New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune
- Ethnic Newswatch This link opens in a new windowFull text newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic minority and native press. Provides a rich collection of articles, editorials, and reviews with a broad diversity of perspectives and viewpoints. Also a good source of ethnic recipes. Coverage is from 1980 to the present. View the Ethnic NewsWatch handout
- Alt-PressWatch This link opens in a new windowA full text collection of newspapers, magazines and journals of the alternative and independent press. View the Alt-Press Watch handout.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowFull text of over 1000 scholarly journals in the arts and sciences, from their earliest issues up to 3-5 years ago. Does not include current issues of the journals. Video tutorials are available.