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Government Sources: Top Government Sites

Top Government Websites

Capital building

CONGRESS.GOV

Congress.gov is the official website for US federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. (Image Source)

Grecian government building

SENATORLASTNAME.SENATE.GOV

Each senator have their own website which can be reached by their lastname.senate.gov. These sites contain important statements and press releases about current senate activity.

GPO.GOV

The US Government Publishing Office (GPO) is the Federal Government's official, digital, secure resource for producing, procuring, cataloging, indexing, authenticating, disseminating, and preserving the official information products of the US Government. The Catalog of Government Publications is the finding tool for these publications. (Image Source)

Tips for Finding Government Documents

There are many different types of Government documents that are related to the Congress and the Presidency. In order to find information efficiently, take a moment to think about the kind of information you are trying to locate:

  1. Key Players
    Who are the government agencies, regulators, members of Congress, etc. that may have been involved? Start by searching for press releases and news briefs from their offices. This will help connect you to some of the language of legislation you can then use to search. 
  2. Type of Information
    Are you looking for laws? Statistical information? Congressional member remarks? Congressional records? Knowing what you are looking for will inform which search filters you use on Congress.gov (for example, limiting to search for legislation vs searching through Congressional Records).
    1. Tip for this assignment - start by looking through Congressional Records. Congressional Records are what took place on the floor of Congress. Filter this search by the current Congress and the timeframe of the ACA amendment in Summer 2017. 
  3. Time Frame
    Filter your searches on any government website by the specific time frame of the legislation you are looking for. This might include day/date of votes, floor discussions, hearings, etc. For example, for documents on the ACA, the time frame is end of July 2017 into August 2017. 
  4. Citation
    The citation is one of the fastest ways of locating copies of legislation. Citations are alphabetical abbreviations for the branch of Congress in which they originated and a unique identification number. 
    1. The Active Legislation section of Senate.gov provides lists of bills currently receiving legislative or media attention. Bills are listed alphabetically by popular title or subject. 

Check out this "Key to Legislative Citations" table on the U.S. Senate website for explanation of what each part of the citation signifies.

 

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