DOI: 10.7910/dvn/gpabog
title: Database of Congressional Historical Statistics, 1789-1989 [United States]

description: This data release is from a database of United States Congressional statistics spanning the time period 1789 through 1989. There are nine data files in total and some files contain records for additional Congresses. The rows in the various files describe different entities. For example, in the Votes file, each row contains a record of a vote by a particular member on a particular roll call vote. The Member file contains a record for each member of Congress, while the Serves file contains a record for each member for every Congress in which he or she served. See the descriptions of each file in the codebook for details about its contents. The data from the various files can be combined by matching the fields that they have in common. Cross-file searches should be conducted using the Member_ID field. However, not every file has the Member_ID field. In those cases, an alternative common field should be used. This release does not include the Committee File and its data due to discrepancies in the Member_ID field. Data About Members of Congress The Member Table The original source of the biographical data contained in the Member table was the ICPSR’s Roster of United States Congressional Officeholders and Biographical Characteristics of Members of the United States Congress, 1789-1993: Merged Data (ICPSR 7803). John R. Hibbing edited these data for inclusion in this database. There is a row in the table for each member of congress from the 1st to the 103rd congress. There are 11,364 rows in this table. Data in this table include such items as the name, sex, place and date of birth, college attended, and other biographical facts. The Serves Table The data in this table were taken from the Roster of United States Congressional Officeholders and Biographical Characteristics of Members of the United States Congress, 1789-1993: Merged Data (ICPSR 7803) as edited by John R. Hibbing for inclusion in this database. Each row represents the service of one member in one congress. Data include what state and district the member represented, the member’s dates of service in this congress, and other facts. There are data from the 1st to the 103rd congresses. This table contains 42,304 rows. The Party Table The data in the Party table were compiled by David T. Canon based on The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress: 1789-1989 (New York: Macmillan, 1989) by Kenneth C. Martis. There is a row in this table for each member of congress for each congress in which he or she served. There are records from the 1st to the 101st congresses. The data consist of identifying information for each member and the member’s party affiliation. For each member about whom authorities disagree on assigning the party affiliation, more than one code is given. There are 40,942 rows in this table. Data About Congressional Elections The Election Table The data in the Election table were compiled from United States Historical Election Returns, 1824-1968 (ICPSR 0001) as updated by David T. Canon. There is a row for each candidate in each election for the house and senate from the 19th to the 104th congress. There are 94,640 rows. The rows contain data such as the candidates' name, the states and districts in which they were running, vote totals and vote percentages. Data About Roll Call Votes The Issue Table The data in the Issues table were originally compiled by Howard L. Rosenthal and Keith T. Poole, and were based on United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1987: Reformatted Data (ICPSR 9822) as expanded and updated by Rosenthal and Poole. There is a row in the table for each roll call vote taken in each chamber from the 1st through the 100th congress. The political issues that this roll call vote concerns are coded in each row. Codings by Peltzman (1984), Clausen (1983) and Poole and Rosenthal are included. There are 77,928 rows in this table. The Roll Call Text Table In the original codebooks for the United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1987: Reformatted Data (ICPSR 9822), there are one or more lines of text describing each roll call. This table contains those lines of text and identifying information for each roll call. There are 281,567 rows in this table describing 77,926 roll call votes taken from the 1st to 100th congresses. The Votes Table These data are taken from United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1987: Reformatted Data (ICPSR 9822). Each row represents a single vote by a single member on a single roll call. The data include an identifier for the member, an identifier for the roll call, and a code for the vote cast by the member. There are 16,021,696 rows in this table. Data About Presidential Requests The Request Table Michael J. Malbin collected the data in the Request table for inclusion in this database. Each row in this table represents a request by a president for action by congress. The data include the date of the request, a description of the request, and a citation to the document containing the request. There are 12,500 rows in the table. The Roll Call Requests Table These data were compiled by Michael J. Malbin. This table links the presidential requests described in the Request table with the roll call votes in the Rollcall table. Data in this table include identifiers which link to the appropriate roll call and request in the other tables, and information on the president's position, whether his position was supported by the roll call, and the type of vote. This table contains 6,854 rows and contains data from the 1st to the 101st congresses.