Datamob: government

The New York Times Campaign Finance API

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 09:07:24 -0500

Retrieve political campaign contribution and expenditure data based on United States Federal Election Commission filings. Data available in JSON, XML or serialized PHP. Registration required.

See the announcement on Open for more information.

url: http://developer.nytimes.com/docs/campaign_finance_api

World Bank API

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:12:00 -0500

The World Bank API offers data on 114 key economic indicators from three of the World Bank's most popular databases: World Development Indicators 2008, Worldwide Governance Indicators, and Doing Business. Also provides access to 12,000 images that illustrate development topics from The World Bank Photo Library and returns results in JSON or XML.

url: http://developer.worldbank.org/

New Zealand Legislation

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:34:42 -0500

Text of New Zealand Acts, Bills and Regulations. Their RSS feed can be put to good use.

submitted by: Rob McKinnon

url: http://legislation.govt.nz/

TheMiddleClass.org Scorecard Data

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:43:15 -0500

Download TheMiddleClass.org's scorecard data for U.S. legislation calculated according to potential impact on the middle class. CSV format.

url: http://themiddleclass.org/csv

Notices from the London Gazette

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:12:36 -0500

All notices published in the London Gazette, the UK government’s official journal and newspaper of record, in XML from February 2007 to May 2008.

url: http://www.londongazette.co.uk/mashup/gazettesdata.htm

UK Neighbourhood Statistics API

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:59:37 -0500

SOAP-based API from the UK Office of National Statistics for accessing data about UK neighborhoods. Includes data on the 2001 Census, Access to Services, Community Well-Being/Social Environment, Crime and Safety, Economic Deprivation, Education, Skills and Training, Health and Care, Housing, Indicators, Indices of Deprivation, People and Society, Physical Environment and Work Deprivation.

Read more about the data here.

url: http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/Info.do?page=nde.htm

U.S. Copyright Renewal Records

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:25:17 -0500

U.S. copyright renewal records, downloadable as a single XML file. By Google software engineer Jarkko Hietaniemi. Public domain.

url: http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2008/06/us-copyright-renewal-records-available.html

National Center for Health Statistics Data Warehouse

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:10:47 -0500

Downloadable data on U.S. health topics including vital statistics, aging, immunization, health care and nutrition.

url: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/datawh/ftpserv/ftpdata/ftpdata.htm

U.S. Lobbying Databases

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:58:38 -0500

Lobbyist information, made available by the U.S. Senate Office of Public Records in accordance with the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA). XML format.

url: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/Public_Disclosure/database_download.htm

IRS Income Tax Data

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:55:13 -0500

ZIP Code Area tables for tax years 2002, 2004 and 2005 from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service's Statistics of Income (SOI) program, which uses the Federal tax system as a comprehensive source of economic and financial information. Microsoft Excel format. Public domain.

url: http://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/soi_zipcode_data/

MAPLight.org: Special Interest Categories and Bill Research

Tue, 13 May 2008 20:27:04 -0500

The 400+ interest categories used by MAPLight.org, the National Institute on Money in State Politics (Follow the Money) and the Center for Responsive Politics (Open Secrets) to categorize political campaign contributions. Bill research used by MAPLight. Originally contributed by MAPLight to Watchdog.net. Microsoft Excel and CSV formats.

See also: MAPLight API.

url: http://watchdog.net/data/crawl/maplight/

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Mon, 05 May 2008 08:05:56 -0500

Data on labor economics. Most tables available in tab-delimited and comma-delimited ASCII text.

url: http://www.bls.gov/

Civic Footprint API

Sun, 04 May 2008 22:02:10 -0500

Look up the political geography of any address in Cook County, Illinois.

url: http://www.civicfootprint.org/about/api

Who Is My Representative API

Sun, 04 May 2008 21:37:50 -0500

Call Who Is My Representative PHP scripts directly with ZIP code information and have XML or JSON returned with information on the corresponding representation in U.S. Congress.

url: http://whoismyrepresentative.com/api/

Rhode Island GovTracker API

Sun, 04 May 2008 21:07:56 -0500

RESTful API from the Rhode Island Secretary of State's eGovernment and IT Divison, offering access to basic information on state elected and appointed officials, committees, proposed rules and regulations and other local government information.

url: http://www.state.ri.us/govtracker/services/

MAPLight API

Fri, 02 May 2008 13:48:51 -0500

Query U.S. House and Senate candidate funding data from MAPLight.org.

See also: MAPLight.org: Special Interest Categories and Bill Research.

url: http://www.maplight.org/widgets/apis

Taxpayers for Common Sense Congressional Earmark Database

Fri, 02 May 2008 12:36:55 -0500

Comprehensive, downloadable database of U.S. Congressional earmarks. Provided by Taxpayers for Common Sense, an organization dedicated to cutting wasteful government spending. Microsoft Excel format.

url: http://www.taxpayer.net/

Watchdog.net API

Thu, 01 May 2008 08:33:10 -0500

Query the Watchdog.net U.S. political data hub in a variety of ways. The site is designed to be machine-readable as well as human-readable.

url: http://watchdog.net/about/api

Project Vote Smart API

Thu, 01 May 2008 07:57:00 -0500

Query Project Vote Smart's database of U.S. political candidates' voting records, campaign contributions, public statements, biographies and special-interest group ratings.

url: http://www.votesmart.org/services_api.php

Doing Business: Full Data

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:21:50 -0500

Data on business regulations and their enforcement across 178 countries and selected cities. A project of the World Bank. Tables downloadable in Microsoft Excel format.

url: http://www.doingbusiness.org/CustomQuery/

Voteview

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:17:10 -0500

U.S. Senate and House roll call data and other political data compiled by Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal. ASCII text.

url: http://voteview.com/

TheyWorkForYou API

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:38:27 -0500

Query the TheyWorkForYou.com database on the activities of Members of British Parliament.

url: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/api/

Parliament Parser

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:30:25 -0500

Structured data about Members of British Parliament.

url: http://ukparse.kforge.net/parlparse/

Statistical Abstract of the United States

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:00:19 -0500

The U.S. Census Bureau's comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political and economic organization of the United States. Many tables downloadable in Microsoft Excel format.

url: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/

Law Commons

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:26:02 -0500

Source files and information on AltLaw.org, the full-text searchable database of U.S. Supreme Court and Federal Appellate case reports. Case reports are downloadable via FTP.

url: http://lawcommons.org/trac/

OECD.Stat

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:29:13 -0500

Search for and extract data from across the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's databases.

url: http://titania.sourceoecd.org/vl=2538876/cl=37/nw=1/rpsv/statistic/s36_about.htm?jnlissn=99991004

CIA World Factbook

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:57:37 -0500

Public-domain information about the countries of the world from the U.S. government, downloadable as a compressed Zip of HTML files.

url: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

New Zealand Hansard

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:52:12 -0500

Text of New Zealand parliamentary debates. No developer-friendly download options; HTML parsing required.

url: http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/

United Kingdom Hansard

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:47:48 -0500

Text of British parliamentary debates. No developer-friendly download options; HTML parsing required. See the Parliament Parser.

url: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/pahansard.htm

Legislative Council of California Bill Index

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:08:08 -0500

California legislative data, available in ASCII text.

url: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilindex.html

U.S. Federal Election Commission Campaign Finance Data

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:15:29 -0500

U.S. political campaign finance data, downloadable in comma-delimited ASCII text.

See also the Maplight API and New York Times Campaign Finance API.

url: http://www.fec.gov/disclosure.shtml

San Francisco Building Permit Activity

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:30:38 -0500

Building permits issued or applied for as reported by the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection (DBI), published in Microsoft Excel format.

url: http://www.sfgov.org/site/dbi_page.asp?id=30605

Follow the Money API

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:38:19 -0500

Web framework for accessing the National Institute on Money in State Politics' database of all campaign contributions to political campaigns at the state level.

See also: MAPLight.org: Special Interest Categories and Bill Research

url: http://www.followthemoney.org/services/index.phtml

LOUIS API

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:25:49 -0500

Web framework for accessing the 300,000 U.S. federal government documents that comprise the LOUIS database. The documents are scraped daily from the Government Printing Office website, GPOAccess.gov.

url: http://www.louisdb.org/api/

SunlightLabs API

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:51:11 -0500

Access to clerical information about members of the 110th U.S. Congress (phone, email, district). Features API methods that tie cities to ZIP codes to districts to latitude/longitude

url: http://sunlightlabs.com/api/

FedSpending.org

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:49:15 -0500

Access to U.S. government spending information. Data can be downloaded in comma-delimited ASCII text, tab-delimited ASCII text and XML, and there's an API as well.

url: http://www.fedspending.org/

Open Secrets

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:04:14 -0500

Data on money in U.S. politics, collected and published by the Center for Responsive Politics.

See also: MAPLight.org: Special Interest Categories and Bill Research

url: http://www.opensecrets.org/

USAspending.gov

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:49:57 -0500

Access to U.S. government contract, grant and other award data, downloadable in CSV and XML formats as well as via API.

url: http://www.usaspending.gov/

The Public Whip Data: British MP Voting Records

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:13:33 -0500

Data for British MP votes for each division, attendance and rebelliousness rates. In .txt, .dat, XML and text dumps of MySQL tables.

url: http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/project/data.php

Washington, D.C. Citywide Data Warehouse

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:09:55 -0500

Comprehensive collection of government activity data from the District of Columbia.

url: http://data.octo.dc.gov/

GovTrack Government Activity Data

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:58:14 -0500

A directory of the datasets that power GovTrack.us. RDF, CSV and XML formats.

Learn more about the GovTrack backend.

url: http://wiki.govtrack.us/index.php/Data_Directory

Map of Newspaper Endorsements in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 20:11:05 -0500

Map of newspaper endorsements in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, using data from Editor & Publisher's list. By Philip (Flip) Kromer.

url: http://infochimps.org/static/gallery/politics/endorsements_map/endorsements_map.html

Influence of U.S. Presidents on the Economy

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:35:51 -0500

Interactive heatmap showing yearly estimates for seven economic indicators during the terms of eleven U.S. presidents. By Kevin Quealy and Guilbert Gates for The New York Times.

url: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10/18/business/20081019-metrics-graphic.html

2008 Presidential Campaign Donations

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:33:11 -0500

Visualization of the donations made to the 2008 presidential campaigns of Obama and McCain, showing the majority of Obama's donations in the $1-$100 bracket and the majority of McCain's donations in the $500-$1,000 bracket. Created with PHP, XML and Processing. By Pitch Interactive.

url: http://www.pitchinteractive.com/election2008/

Timeline of the Modern Two-Party System in the U.S. Senate

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:37:07 -0500

Timeline of the ebb and flow of party politics in the U.S. Senate since the beginning of the two-party era: the antebellum 35th Congress. By David Sparks.

url: http://www.duke.edu/~dbs9/senatehistory.html

Knowledge as Power

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 20:51:01 -0500

Simple, personalized website for searching and tracking bills of the Washington State Legislature. Additional tools include legalese translation, bill timelines and tools for emailing your legislators.

submitted by: Sarah Schacht

url: http://beta.knowledgeaspower.org

U.S. Presidential Polls Over Time

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 13:08:57 -0500

Visualization of state and national polls on the U.S. presidential race. Roll over individual data points for more detail. Data for each chart is available for download in tab-delimited text format. By Lee Byron, Chris Barnes and Henry Corrigan-Gibbs for The New York Times.

url: http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/whos-ahead/polling/index.html

TheMiddleClass.org

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:36:09 -0500

Searchable and browsable analysis of U.S. legislation based on potential impact on the middle class. Uses the Legislature module for Drupal by Neil Drumm. By the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy (DMI).

url: http://themiddleclass.org/

Presidential Campaign Spending and Its Beneficiaries

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 02:29:14 -0500

Interactive graphic showing the amount of money spent by 2008 presidential campaigns by category and company. By Lee Byron, Hannah Fairfield and Griff Palmer for The New York Times.

url: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/07/03/business/20080706_METRICS_GRAPHIC.html

Illegal Signs Map

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:45:47 -0500

Interactive map of illegal billboards in Toronto, Canada. Data is derived from Freedom of Information requests.

url: http://illegalsigns.ca/map/

Supporting Evidence

Sat, 24 May 2008 22:07:41 -0500

Graphical data on education, government and health topics, with links to the tables they're drawn from.

url: http://www.supportingevidence.com/

2008 Campaign Finance Map

Tue, 20 May 2008 21:11:34 -0500

Interactive map showing U.S. presidential campaign contributions by location of origin and date made. Includes an animation option to view contribution activity over time. By Shan Carter, Aron Pilhofer and Cameron Brown for The New York Times.

url: http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/finances/map/index.html

D.C. Data Pipes

Mon, 12 May 2008 20:13:07 -0500

Yahoo Pipes created using public space permit, crime incident, building permit, service request, and juvenile arrests and charges data from Washington, D.C. Citywide Data Warehouse. Each pipe allows users to filter data and return results—in some cases, results are also mapped. By Frank Winstead.

url: http://pipes.yahoo.com/frank_winstead

CrimeReports.com

Mon, 12 May 2008 19:23:46 -0500

Maps crime data from cities and law enforcement agencies around the U.S. By Public Engines, Inc., a private company that provides web-based products to help government agencies share information directly with local communities.

url: http://www.crimereports.com

Unfluence

Sun, 04 May 2008 22:40:24 -0500

Interactive network maps of U.S. state-level political contribution data.

url: http://unfluence.primate.net/index.html

Ease of Doing Business Map

Sun, 04 May 2008 22:22:15 -0500

Google Map showing the relative ease of doing business in 178 countries according to the World Bank's Doing Business project.

url: http://rru.worldbank.org/businessplanet/

Visualizing Earmarks

Sun, 04 May 2008 22:10:19 -0500

Visualizations of 2005 U.S. Office of Management and Budget earmark data.

See also Earmark Watch.

url: http://sunlightlabs.com/visualizingearmarks/

Civic Footprint

Sun, 04 May 2008 21:50:38 -0500

A tool for exploring the political geography of Cook County, Illinois. By the Center for Neighborhood Technology.

url: http://www.civicfootprint.org/

Who Is My Representative?

Sun, 04 May 2008 21:24:37 -0500

Simple tool for looking up representation in U.S. Congress.

url: http://whoismyrepresentative.com/

Federal Contracts by State

Sun, 04 May 2008 20:54:41 -0500

U.S. federal contract data visually presented using the Google Charts API. By Jim Hamilton.

url: http://www.tetonpost.com/sc/

Earmark Watch

Fri, 02 May 2008 13:07:10 -0500

Public space for the investigation of earmarks—spending measures inserted by members of U.S. Congress into bills that direct taxpayer dollars to their pet projects. Provides a research framework and space for comments and notes.

url: http://earmarkwatch.org/

Watchdog.net

Thu, 01 May 2008 08:12:04 -0500

Hub for U.S. political data, action and causes. Every important page is also available as an API, accessible in N3, XML or JSON.

url: http://watchdog.net/

Network Diagrams of U.S. Senator Roll Call Voting Proximity

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:30:13 -0500

"Using Senators' Roll Call votes from the first session of the 110th Congress, it is possible to identify ideological similarities and differences between each Senator. These network diagrams exhibit these similarities and distances." By David Sparks.

url: http://arbitrarian.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/dimesworth-of-difference/

President Bush State of the Union Speech Sentence Diagrams

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:25:02 -0500

Diagrammatic expressions of the content of President George W. Bush's State of the Union Addresses. Offers contrasts between speeches made in different years. By David Sparks

url: http://arbitrarian.wordpress.com/2008/04/13/bushs-legacy-speaks-for-itself/

UK: Constituency Lookup Widget

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:55:47 -0500

Enter a UK postcode, get back a constituency name.

url: http://www.dracos.co.uk/work/theyworkforyou/api/postcode/

Follow the Oil Money

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:00:15 -0500

Interactive tool for tracking the flow of oil money in U.S. politics.

url: http://oilmoney.priceofoil.org/

ExxonSecrets

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 03:40:21 -0500

Greenpeace research project which uses the TheyRule mapping interface to explore how climate change skeptics receive funding from ExxonMobil.

url: http://www.exxonsecrets.org/maps.php

EveryBlock

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:54:59 -0500

Comprehensive geographic news filter, currently available for Chicago, New York City and San Francisco.

url: http://www.everyblock.com/

PopUp Politicians for Web Pages

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:57:06 -0500

Javascript-based widget that adds mini-profiles of Members of Congress to web page that appear when you mouseover politicians' names.

url: http://sunlightlabs.com/popuppoliticians/

Change Congress

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:48:16 -0500

Offers tools for citizens and candidates to pledge their support for basic changes to reduce the distorting influence of money in American government.

url: http://change-congress.org/

StateMaster

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:44:47 -0500

Graphically compare U.S. states in a thousand different ways.

url: http://www.statemaster.com/index.php

The Public Whip

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:39:47 -0500

Track the votes of British MPs and Lords.

url: http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/

MPTables.com

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:38:51 -0500

Scatterplot of British MPs, ranking them according to metrics like attendance and comments on speeches.

url: http://www.mptables.com/

TheyWorkForYou.co.nz

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:32:44 -0500

Track the New Zealand Parliament and its elected representatives. By Rob McKinnon.

url: http://www.theyworkforyou.co.nz

TheyWorkForYou.com

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:31:33 -0500

Track the activities of the British Parliament and its elected representatives.

url: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/

GovTrack.us

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:30:43 -0500

Track bills before Congress and other U.S. government data. By Joshua Tauberer.

url: http://www.govtrack.us/

MAPLight.org

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:30:04 -0500

Illuminates the connection between money and politics in America, specifically the U.S. Congress and the State of California. Uses the Legislature module for Drupal by Neil Drumm. They have an API as well.

url: http://maplight.org/about