How does one find out what laws politicians have voted on?

Question

To me this is a big issue. I want to start a website detailing what laws politicans have voted on. Who voted to cede authority to the President on Iraq? Who voted in support of the law banning Internet gambling? Who voted to allow for reinterpretation of the Geneva Convention?

I think politicians get away with things because we are ignorant of what they vote on. I think that right now we seem to leave it to enemy advertisements to tell us their "bad votes" but the source is so biased that we then often brush it off.

Either there is a way to track their vote history or we are being screwed over in a big way. I'm sure there has to be one and whoever can give me a link to find out who voted on what bills and resolutions gets the points--and my respect.

Bonus: Is there a way to find out how many trips they each take? Such as the ones who go to Paris 150 times a year under the guise of "doing research"? There should be a way to track this as well.

Answer 1

There are two sources. One is the Thomas web site of the Library of Congress. The other is the web site for C-Span. Both permit you to search for various laws  (Pulic Law #107-243 is the one which authorized military force agaqinst Iraq for example). You can also retrieve the vote of each member of the Senate and the House.

There is one caveat. In reading that public law previously cited, you might experience some distress when you come to find out that WMDs was not one of the chief reasons for authorizing that force. When you get around to looking over Public Law #107-108 which authorized warrantless electronic surveillance for up to 72 hours, you might be somewhat taken aback that every one of the 100 Senators voted "Aye" on that law. The very Senators who then tried to savage the President for following what they said he could do.

Answer 2

Alot of this info is on USCONGRESS.com.

my kid used it for his civics class last year and I checked it out. There is alot of info in there.

Have fun

Answer 3

You can go to this web site:

http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/in...

and find out who your Congressman or Senator is. From there you will find links to their voting record, and even the complete text of the legislation.

It's a great site to find out who voted how on what.