American Government on the Web

What is Democracy?: This site is produced and maintained by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs. In short, it is the federal government's official position on the concept of democracy, which it shares with the world via the internet.

National Constitution Center (NCC): The NCC was established by Congress through the Constitution Heritage Act of 1988, as an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding of the U.S. Constitution. Here you will find links to the Constitution and other historical documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Federalist Papers.

Founding Fathers: This page offers biographies of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Take a look and decide for yourself if Charles Beard ("An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States") was right.

Unfunded Mandates: This is a 1998 General Accounting Office (GAO) report to Congress on attempts to curb the imposition of unfunded mandates by federal agencies on state and local governments. This is a PDF document.)

The Heritage Foundation: "Federalism Reform: Seven Options for Congress" by Heritage Foundation expert Adam D. Thierer, provides more ammunition to the "Fed up with the Feds" article in the text by Seay and Smith (also, formerly, of the Heritage Foundation).

Congress.org's Guide to State Elected Officials

Stateline.org: "Same-sex unions -- a constitutional race" by Kavan Peterson, Stateline.org Staff Writer. Stateline.org, initiated in 1999 as an independent element of the Pew Research Center based in Washington, D.C., is funded entirely by The Pew Charitable Trusts as a public service. The site is staffed entirely by professional journalists and is designed to serve as a resource for 1: newsmen and newswomen who cover state government, and for 2: state officials, students of state government and ordinary citizens who want to keep track of what's going on in their state capitol and in other states throughout the country.

Traditional Values Coalition -- Survey Of States With Marriage Amendments: The Traditional Values Coalition, founded in 1980, is a nondenominational, grassroots, faith-based interest group.

Lambda Legal -- Marriage Project: "Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work."

NORC: NORC is a national organization for research at the University of Chicago. This organization is best known for its General Social Survey (GSS) and other national studies, many of which deal with American attitudes about politics and policy issues.

National Election Studies (NES): NES, housed within the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, conducts national surveys of the American electorate in presidential and midterm election years and carries out research and development work through pilot studies in odd-numbered years. It is an excellent source of data on U.S. elections.

The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA): PIPA is a joint program of the Center on Policy Attitudes (COPA) and the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM), School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland. The organization carries out research on public attitudes on international issues by conducting nationwide polls, focus groups and comprehensive reviews of polling conducted by other organizations.

Survey USA: Survey USA is a private market research and public opinion polling firm that posts much of its polling results online.

Quinnipiac University Poll: "The independent Quinnipiac University Poll regularly surveys residents in Connecticut, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and nationwide about political races, state and national elections, and issues of public concern, such as schools, taxes, transportation, municipal services, and the environment."

Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project: Established in December of 2000 to prevent a reccurence of the problems associated with the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, with particular focus on evaluating the current state of reliability and uniformity of U.S. voting systems, and creating uniform guidelines and quantitative performance standards to assess the reliability of voting systems.

National Commission on Federal Election Reform: The National Commission on Federal Election Reform, cochaired by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford "was formed in the wake of the 2000 election crisis to quickly evaluate an enormous body of research on election reform, review policy proposals, and offer a bipartisan analysis to the Congress, the administration, and the American people." The commission released its final report to Congress and the White House on July 31, 2001.

Population Resource Center -- Fact Sheet: The Demographics of Voting in America: "The mission of the Population Resource Center is to promote the use of accurate population data and sound, objective analysis of these data in the making of public policy."

The Living Room Candidate: This Web site is presented by the American Museum of Moving Image in cooperation with the Political Communication Center, University of Oklahoma. The site provides an archive of streaming video television ads from presidential campaigns from 1952 to 1996, with updates for the 2000 and 2004 campaigns forthcoming.

Campaigns and Elections : is one of the leading trade publications for political operatives. Don't be discouraged if some of the material on the e-version of the magazine is password protected. A good deal of this publication's content is publicly accessible.

Democracy 21: Democracy 21, founded in 1997, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose stated mission is to work toward the elimination of the "undue influence of big money in American politics and to ensure the integrity and fairness of government decisions and elections." Democracy 21 promotes campaign finance reform and other political reforms to accomplish these goals.

ChronWatch.com: "ChronWatch.com is a media watchdog and conservative news site, with a focus on the San Francisco Chronicle. We provide commentary on recent Chronicle articles, journalists and publications, in addition to our own guest columns and editorials."

Campaign Finance Reform: This is a position paper published by opensecrets.org, a public interest group specializing in the role money plays in politics, today.

U.S. Electoral College: This site is published by the National Archives and Records Administration's Office of the Federal Register (OFR). The OFR coordinates the functions of the Electoral College on behalf of the United States and the states.

Congress.org's guide to the field of '04 presidential contenders

The Graduated Random Presidential Primary System (California Plan)

2004 results: Cartograms: This site depicts the 2004 presidential election results in map form, adjusting the relative sizes of the states and counties to reflect the population in each state and county.

Green Party USA, Libertarian Party, Reform Party, Comprehensive index of political party web sites: Here are some links to information on third-parties on the American political scene.

Taubman Center for Public Policy (Brown University) -- Taubman Center Policy Reports: The Taubman Center is devoted to interdisciplinary research, teaching, and service in the areas of education, health care, urban, law, and technology policy. The Century Foundation: "The Century Foundation conducts public policy research and analysis of economic, social, and foreign policy issues, including inequality, retirement security, election reform, media studies, homeland security, and international affairs. The foundation produces books, reports, and other publications, [and] convenes task forces and working groups . . ."

The Center for American Progress: The Center for American Progress (CAP) is a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to advancing policies that help create sustained economic growth and new opportunities for all Americans. The CAP supports fiscal discipline, shared prosperity, and investments in people through education, health care, and workforce training.

Political Advocacy Groups: Advocacy groups lobby elected officials via personal contact, by raising and disbursing campaign funds, by disseminating policy oriented research, and by organizing grassroots citizen activism. Here is a comprehensive list of such groups.

Groups listed A-Z

Groups listed by subject area Note: Look for the "check mark" to find groups that rate members of Congress.

Who Rules America? Power, Politics, and Social Change: This is the web companion to the book by the same name, with the following editorial review: "Drawing from a power elite perspective and the latest empirical data, Domhoff's classic text is an invaluable tool for teaching students about how power operates in U.S. society. Domhoff argues that the owners and top-level managers in large income-producing properties are far and away the dominant figures in the U.S. Their corporations, banks, and agribusinesses come together as a corporate community that dominates the federal government in Washington and their real estate, construction, and land development companies form growth coalitions that dominate most local governments. By providing empirical evidence for his argument, Domhoff encourages students to think critically about the power structure in American society and its implications for our democracy."

U.S. Senate

C-SPAN Online: In addition to general public affairs programming, this site provides online gavel-to-gavel coverage of U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate proceedings.

CongressLink: Developed by The Dirksen Congressional Center, this nonprofit, nonpartisan organization connects the classroom to the halls of Congress and beyond. Technology based curricular materials focus on history, politics, civics, and related subjects.

Congress.org

Authors:
Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)
Jim Leach (R-IA)
Tom Harkin(D-IA)

How a Bill Becomes a Law: A lighter, humorous look at the process.

White House

Historical Election Results:  Here you will find the results of every American presidential election from 1789 to 2000.

POTUS: Presidents of the United States. This is an excellent source of background information, election results, information on cabinet members, notable events. This site also includes some points of interest on each of the presidents.

The struggle for power in an era of terrorism: The War Powers Act of 1973 was designed to help regulate one of the most contentious areas of dispute between Congress and the president over recent decades: the president's use of military force to advance foreign policy objectives without full consultation and consent from Congress. The Congress passed this law in hopes of reigning in what some were beginning to call "the imperial presidency." The law has not always worked as well is its sponsors had hoped, however, and there are a number of provisions that can be invoked to weaken the law's bite. Declaring a "national emergency" (which President Bush did on September 14, 2001) is one such way. Since the 9-11 tragedy, President Bush has exercised extraordinary control over the armed forces, despite some misgivings of the legislative branch. Here is a collection of links to the statutory powers and exceptions related to the president's prerogatives regarding the exercise of his Article II powers as Commander in Chief.

Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections: This site, put together by Dave Leip, provides a comprehensive look at U.S. Presidential elections from 1789 through 2000.

Presidential campaign ads through the years.

Bush approval ratings

Supreme Court of the U.S.

Federal Judiciary

Executive offices and agencies

The Federal Web Locator: The Federal Web Locator is a service provided by the Center for Information Law and Policy, a joint initiative of the Villanova University School of Law and the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law. The site contains a comprehensive directory of federal government information found on the world wide web.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RESOURCES: Civil Service. This page, published and maintained by the University of Michigan Library Documents Center, is an excellent source of information for all manner of information related to the federal civil service.

The Oyez Project:The Oyez Project takes its name from the phrase by which the Marshal of the Court calls the courtroom to order (pronounced "o-yay" and repeated three times). It is an initiative of the Northwestern University and provides abstracts and audio recordings of leading constitutional law cases decided by the Supreme Court, and includes a virtual tour of the Court building.

The Pacific Legal Foundation: The Pacific Legal Foundation is a libertarian interest group and think tank that provides lawyers to argue on the behalf of individual rights, and against government regulation.

Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence (Claremont Institute): The Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence is a public interest law firm that urges the courts to "restore the constitutional principles adopted by our nation's Founders."

Federalist Papers: Click here to find the text of Federalist papers cited in the article by Eastman and Sandefur.

Board of Regents of the Univ. of  Wisconsin v. Southworth (2000): In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court finds that the First Amendment permits a public university to charge its students an activity fee used to fund a program to facilitate extracurricular student speech, provided that the program is "viewpoint neutral."

"Mandatory Student Fees Get Supreme Court Hearing":  This op/ed was published by Accuracy In Academia (AIA) in response to Southworth. AIA is a nonprofit public service organization, based in Washington, D.C., which seeks the reassertion of traditional values in America's colleges and universities.

USA PATRIOT Act (2001): The title of this act is an acronym that stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.

The USA PATRIOT Act was passed by U.S. Congress in 2001 and signed into law by President George Bush on October 26 -- 45 days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The Act is a revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and enhances the authority of U.S. law enforcement for the stated purpose of investigating and preempting potential terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, as well as providing enhanced legal authority to detect and prosecute other alleged potential crimes. Also, see the official Public Law (PL107-056).

The Center for National Security Studies: The Center for National Security Studies, founded in 1974, is a nongovernmental advocacy and research organization interested in preventing violations of civil liberties by the FBI and CIA.

Life and Liberty.gov: This U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) Web site is devoted to providing the public with the DoJ's take on the USA PATRIOT Act and related matters.

Judge Rothwax interview (NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 1996)

Cornell Law primer on criminal procedure

Age-Specific Arrest Rates and Race-Specific Arrest Rates for Selected Offenses, 1993-2001: This .pdf file is a report published by the Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Federal Bureau of Investigation (November 2003)

Links and Resources: This Washington Post site provides background material, news stories and editorials, links to court cases, and political statements on this issue.

Affirmative Action Review Report to the President: This review of federal affirmative action programs was written for President Clinton in 1995. It reviews the kinds of Federal programs and initiatives that were then in place. It also reviews their effects -- benefits and costs, direct and indirect, intended and unintended -- both to the specified beneficiaries and to others.

Women's Equity Resource Center

NCAA Title IX Gender Equity Resource Center

"Open To All" -- Title IX At Thirty: This is final report of the The Secretary of Education's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics which was published in February of 2003.

Roe v. Wade (1973): A pregnant single woman (pseudonym "Roe") brought a class action challenging the constitutionality of the Texas criminal abortion laws, which outlawed abortion except in cases where the mother's life was in jeopardy. The Court declared that the abortion statutes infringed on the plaintiffs' Ninth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and ruled all such laws unconstitutional.

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania et al. v. Casey (1992): At issue here were five provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982 which required that a woman seeking an abortion (1) must be provided with certain information about options and alternatives, (2) must wait 24 hours before the abortion is performed, (3) must have the consent of at least one parent (if a minor), and (4) must inform her husband (if married). The law also (5) stipulated certain reporting requirements on facilities providing abortion services. The Court struck down the husband notification requirement but upheld the other four provisions.

The National Right to Life Committee: The National Right to Life Committee was founded in 1973 in response to a United States Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. In addition to maintaining a lobbying presence at the federal level, this pro-life interest group serves as a clearinghouse of information for its state affiliates and local chapters, its individual members, the press, and the public.

National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL): NARAL is an important political and grassroots organization in the pro-choice movement whose mission is to work for better access to more effective contraceptive options and better access to other kinds of reproductive health care and information.