CQ Press Library Database Collections

Congress Collection

Content and Features

• Public Policy Legislation presents legislative information and analysis under 23 broad topics including: agriculture, civil rights, national security, and transportation
• Members of Congress includes biographical, political, and electoral data about every member of Congress since the 79th Congress
• Floor Votes organizes, by Congress and topic, the preferred data for scholarly research. Each individual floor vote is presented with a description of the vote along with the vote outcome by political party and includes links to the roll call vote, the full text of the legislation, and a state delegation vote map
• The Legislative Branch provides encyclopedic information, statistical data, legislative analysis, and Supreme Court case summaries relating to the structure and powers of Congress

How the Congress Collection supports research

• Finds biographical, political, and election data about every member of Congress since the 79th Congress (1945)
• Searches through encyclopedic information, statistical data, legislative analysis, and Supreme Court case summaries on the structure and powers of Congress
• Compares “CQ Key Votes” voting records between two or more members or sees how demographic characteristic affected vote outcomes
• Analyzes each member and their demographics with interest group scores

Supreme Court Collection

Content and Features

• Summaries and analysis of more than 4,000 major decisions, including all cases in which the Burger, Rehnquist, and Roberts Courts (October 1969–present) issued a written opinion, and links to the full text of the cases
• Court Reports from Supreme Court expert Ken Jost provide timely analysis of current topics and decisions before the Court
• CQ Cases-in-Context—a selection of contemporary and controversial topics that are of enduring interest to researchers, including the death penalty, privacy, and free speech
• “CQ Press Key Cases”—cases designated by the CQ Press editorial staff as the most important in American constitutional and political history
• Documentation of public opinion of the Court and the issues before it, appropriations history, judicial legislation, and judicial staffing
• Chronologies of major cases and justices
• Analysis and comparison of constitutions from a hundred nations

How the Supreme Court Collection supports research

• Analyze justices’ voting records and opinion alignments with powerful and unique tools including “Justice Role Finder,” “Justice Opinion Analysis,” and “Voting Bloc Analysis”
• Find statistics and other data on essential topics, such as the quantitative analysis of voting records, opinion alignments, and political alignments

Voting & Elections Collection

Content and Features

• Election Results
  • Campaigns and Elections explores the American system of voting and elections, electoral process and reform, media, interest groups, and the impact of money
  • Political Parties covers the party system in America, including party strength and control, and profiles Democratic, Republican, and third parties
  • Voters and Demographics covers expansion of voting rights, voter turnout, voting behavior, modern county census data, and modern district profiles
  • Presidential Elections: primary (1912–present), popular (1824–present), and electoral votes (1789–present)
  • House Elections: primary (1994–present) and general (1856–present)
  • Senate Elections: primary (1960–present) and general (1908–present)
  • Gubernatorial Elections: primary (1919–present) and general (1824–present)
• Data export tools allow for customized data downloads for easy statistical analysis

How the Voting and Elections Collection supports research

• Candidate finder and Vote counts to track a candidate’s political career and how percentage of the vote changed in the move from challenger to incumbent. Through Vote counts, researchers can view overall trends in the total Democratic and Republican vote, for example, looking at trends in a particular state over the years to understand current elections in that state or trends in the nationwide presidential vote over the years
• Elections with open seats and Landslide elections and close races to study incumbency and re-election rates, open seat races, and races based on competitiveness, for example, by looking at all candidates who won between 45 to 55% of the vote or who won over 60% of the vote
• Party Control, Split Districts, and Third party candidates to analyze party control and strength in the House and to understand the impact and activity of third party candidates
• House seats that changed party and Special elections to find all the changes that affect officeholders outside of the regular election cycle

Public Affairs Collection

Content and Features

• Authoritative, original content that is relevant, accurate, and objective, and adapted to a highly organized and usable electronic reference
• In-depth background and context for every issue
• Full text or excerpts of key primary sources
• Summaries of key Supreme Court cases and legislation
• Encyclopedia entries for important terms, concepts, and milestones
• Cross-Links to related records within documents
• A CQ Press selection of vetted additional CQ materials, well-respected outside sources, and useful material on the Web in “Further Reading,” “Bibliographies,” and “Web Links”
• Verified contact information for key government, non-profit, and private organizations

Encyclopedia of American Government

Content and Features

• 2,000 encyclopedic and biographical entries on all three branches of the federal government and U.S. elections
• Q&A—key questions with concise answers and links to related questions
• Facts & Figures—graphic and tabular presentations of statistics and other information
• An image collection of historical figures and recent events
• Primary source documents, including the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution
• Bibliographies for further research
• Annotated links to authoritative web resources