Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

This is the archive of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress conversations closed prior to July 2006.

This page was created using the Cut and Paste procudure of the Subpage Archive Method described here:Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page

Contents

To do

Moved from main article page:

  1. Please add all Senators and the Congresses they were in. See article Old version of Ernest Hollings article] for an example.
  2. Create more boxes for Governors.
  3. Would like to know about possibility for adding Categories about what Congresses the Senators or Reps were in so that we can make a list for example
Category:Senators in the 108th Congress
Category:Representatives in the 108th Congress
Jack Cox 12:50, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
I disagree.
  1. Adding all Senators and the Congresses they were in will create excessive clutter. It's interesting information, but too much for the articles. See Old version of Ernest Hollings article.
  2. Governors shouldn't be included in a project regarding the U.S. Congress, as they aren't in the U.S. Congress.
  3. Categories aren't intended to be lists. See Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes.
Perhaps this could have some discussion.
--Markles 16:51, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Statutes at Large

A resource for political actions, in addition to normal history sources, is the page facimilies of the Statutes at Large volumes available at the Library of Congress. I took dates from there for statehood. I don't know what other sources say. The second Congress did not convene until the Autumn of 1791. BobCMU76 12:12 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

Statutes at Large

Dates of each session

The pages for each Congress should mention promimently when the Congress sat. I would suggest at the top of the page. Rmhermen 22:52 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

The session dates are available here. Locations are not shown, The third session of the first congress met in Phila. I believe the second session of the sixth congress first met in D.C. BobCMU76 11:41 May 14, 2003 (UTC)
This document from the Congressional Record lists Congresses, sessions, dates of convening and adjournment, length (in days), President Pro Tem, and Speaker through the convening of Congress in January 2003. It states that Congress met for the first and second sessions of the First Congress (1789 and 1790) in New York City, from the third session of the First Congress through the first session of the Sixth Congress (1790 to 1800) in Philadelphia, and, since the second session of the Sixth Congress (1800), in Washington DC. As an aside, I think using numerals rather than spelled-out numbers (107th Congress, not One Hundred Seventh Congress) would be far easier to read (with redirects based on the spelled-out versions), and also would reflect longstanding practice. This style is used by both houses of Congress. OtherDave 13:06, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
I've assigned myself the task of adding the dates for each session of Congress, along with the location, to each individual Congress's page, using the format I found at the First Congress as an example. I noted on the page for the Sixth that it was the first to have a session in Washington, and on the page for the Seventh that it was the first to meet 'only' in Washington. For subsequent Congresses I will simply include Washington as the location. OtherDave 22:50, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

session dates vs. period served

OK, I'm a little confused about how to describe the dates that a member of Congress served, particularly for pre-1934 Congesses. The Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress seems to do it two ways. For example, I'm looking at the entry for Lucius Lyon. Here [1] the 23rd Congress is listed as 1833-1834. But here [2] the dates are given as March 4, 1833-March 3, 1835. So should I write that he served from 1833-1834 or from 1833-1835? I suppose I could include the exact dates, but that seems to me a bit tedious for persons elected to multiple terms. Bkonrad | Talk 16:23, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The bioguide simplifies things because, today, congresses begin and end on January 3. In the past, it was early March. When it says the 23rd congress is 1833-1834, it means March 1833-March 1835. He should certainly be listed as serving from 33 to 35. Personally, I don't think exact dates are needed unless the person started or ended their term at a date other than the proper start-end date, like if they resigned, died, appointed or contested the election. --Golbez 14:46, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Tables

I've joined this because of the work I've been doing on the tables of state delegations; good examples at US Congressional Delegations from Kentucky and US Congressional Delegations from Florida. These could be a very useful cross-reference tool. These list who served in what congress from a particular state; the #th Congress articles list who served from what state in a particular congress. --Golbez 14:46, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Congregator

I've been playing around with a program I wrote (called congregator) to extract data from pages at [3]. I created a page for the Thirty-second_United_States_Congress as a trial run and then went through and checked the links. More to come.K4 pacific 03:23, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Be warned - the BioGuide's database is sometimes wrong. I typically run into 1-2 errors per state, where it lists someone in the wrong congress, or doesn't list them in the proper congress. (The bios themselves are fine, but the database linking them together is not) --Golbez 05:24, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)
Actually, I've found that the bios are not 100% reliable either. Usually just small errors, but enough to make double-checking things worthwhile. older≠wiser 11:36, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC) PS, re: K4 pacific's program--I think it's great--just add a note at the top that the data was automatically extracted and needs to be verified. older≠wiser 11:39, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Your script is linking to the Georgia disambiguation page, no the state. I have fixed the Thirty-second_United_States_Congress page, but your script needs tweaking. Susvolans 13:00, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll look into it. I haven't done any besides Thirty-second_United_States_Congress and Ninety-eighth_United_States_Congress yet because I am working on a way to automatically verify the links. K4 pacific 14:03, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Congressional districts

Not sure if anyone is still watching this project or not. I'd like to start making articles about Michigan's congressional districts, describing some history and listing representatives from the districts. If possible, I'd like to get maps showing the area represented after each redistricting (although that would require some digging). I'm just wondering if anyone has already tried anything similar and I'm also looking for naming suggestions. I was thinking of First Congressional District of Michigan, but I see there are some other variations under Category:U.S. Congressional districts. Such as North Carolina congressional districts (only lists current districts), United States House of Representatives, Texas District 1, 1st Congressional District of Kansas and First Congressional District of Hawaii. Personally, I think the last naming form is clearest, but curious if anyone else has thoughts about this. older≠wiser 19:49, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Ordinal number first has my vote, for what that's worth (10th Congressional District of Maryland). I think it's easier to read in a list than the spelled-out version would be (Twenty-ninth vs 29th). I just looked at the web pages for 20 House members; roughly 3 in 4 use the equivalent of "3rd" rather than "third" on the home page; at least one of those who spell out the name also uses the numeral elsewhere on the member's site -- "Congressman Wombat of the Ninth District... voters in the 9th District." OtherDave 13:06, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
The articles that exist are formatted:
[[United States House of Representatives, {{{State}}} District {{{number}}}]].

For example,

United States House of Representatives, California District 48

If there is only one district, then District {{{number}}} changes to At Large.

For example,

United States House of Representatives, Alaska At Large

See List of United States Congressional districts for a complete list of all current and obsolete districts.

--Mark Adler (Markles)

North Carolina Congressional Districts

I just reorganized North Carolina Congressional Districts, using a gallery for the maps of the districts and using gallery captions to replace the auto-generated TOC. I also put icons representing the party of each district's officeholder. I think the result improves upon its predecessor in a couple of ways and hope you take it into account for any style guidelines you follow.

BTW, I would have expected the article's title to be North Carolina congressional districts, which would better follow Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Lowercase second and subsequent words. 66.167.252.174 22:25, 20 November 2005 (UTC).

I noticed Markles (talk · contribs) was apparently unhappy with the reorganization, and instead of explaining why (either here or at Talk:North Carolina Congressional Districts), he all but reverted them entirely. Since Markles (talk · contribs) is a member of this project, I hope he explains here why he felt that was necessary. 66.167.252.20 07:48, 22 November 2005 (UTC).
Here are my thoughts on the article, North Carolina Congressional Districts.
-- markles (talk • contribs • logs) 14:46, 22 November 2005 (UTC).
I have no issue with your first two changes, but I would like to discuss the changes made for performance reasons. After doing a little bit of math, I think the version you've introduced is slower than the one you replaced. That's because the thumbnails you introduced are 2-3 times the size of the ones used in the gallery, which more than makes up for the overhead due to the party icons, which, since there are only two of them, are pretty fast, with or without the m:November 2005 image server on wheels. To compare, view the version current as of this comment with the gallery-based version. Both are faster than the immediately previous version, which had 13 ~120K district maps. I think it's safe to say that judged based on performance, the gallery-based TOC is preferable.
Style judgments are admittedly more subjective. I favor the gallery-based TOC because the uncustomized standard TOC makes the article longer and leaves significant whitespace at the top. W.r.t. party icons, I find them worth their minimal cost because they provide an at-a-glance sense of the delegation's dominant political party. They are redundant but communicate more quickly than having to read the corresponding text. A similar re-inforcing technique is used in Monobook, for example in its use of the user icon.
For these reasons, I propose combining your other contributions with the gallery-based TOC and party icons. 66.167.138.98 07:21, 23 November 2005 (UTC).
Are you the same person as the other unsigned (& un-loggged in) commentators, above? --Mark_Adler (t·c) 00:47, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Seventy-first United States Congress?

Is this article correct? Seventy-first United States Congress? It doesn't look right. Can someone working on this project please fix it? thanks :) Kingturtle 07:17, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? I went to the page and added dates for all three sessions, a little project I've assigned myself (dates from the Congressional Record). I did not try to verify names of leaders, though I see the page does not mention President Pro Tem of the Senate (as opposed to the majority leader). OtherDave 14:12, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

i could help this project

i saw the congress pages on the most linked to and nonexistant wikipages list, so i added to the 91st United States Congress and created the 90th United States Congress. all i planned on doing (for now) was copying, pasting, and wiki'ng info from house.gov. then i saw that there was a project for these pages. with "your" OK, i will continue to do so for the remaining missing congress pages, and formatting to any style that you planned on using.
- Somedude 01:41, 2005 Mar 25 (UTC)

Following Somedude's lead, I've been putting specific dates for sessions (see note above). OtherDave 22:50, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Thomas Project

I think you should have every page link to the Thomas Project ([4]) where possible. This is a service of Congress has lists of all Bills passed by each Congress since the 93rd (e.g. [5] etc).Chris Martin 16:46, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Looks bad

I SPENT HOURS ON THOSE SENATE LISTS AND I HAVE IT MESSED UP! I HAVE SAID TIME AND TIME AGAIN THAT IF YOU MESS WITH THOSE LISTS IT LOOKS LIKE CRAP! AND IT DOES LOOK LIKE CRAP, It does not look neat! --Jack Cox 21:08, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

You are so... right. Yeah. I messed them up. Sorry. They do look bad.
So I've since tried to clean them up.
* I put in "nowrap"s in the columns,
* I eliminated the (D), (R), (I) abbreviations because they take up unnecessary space since the colors already indicate party
* Changed "Members of the XXXth Congress" to "United States Senators in the XXXth Congress" because the Senate is a continuous body unlike the House.
I made these changes to the 105th through 109th("Current") templates for your perusal.
What do you think?
--Markles 00:42, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Bless you for using cellpadding! I have been working through the individual Congresses, adding session dates and adding or adjusting the previous/next navigation (the one at the bottom of the page, under External Links), giving it cellpadding of 6. Re Senators: while I agree the Senate is a continuous body in that the terms of office for its members extend through three congresses, the Senate is a part of Congress and thus subordinate to the entity as a whole. Senator Byrd of W. Va., for example, is very much a member of the 109th Congress, as he was of the 108th, 107th, 106th, etc., etc. So I'd go for the simpler "Members of the XXth Congress" label for both houses. OtherDave 22:55, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Categories

The use of the 'catch all' category Members of the U.S. House of Representatives for individual members is just not workable. There is some work that is breaking former members out by state. And there are two forms in use: U.S. Representatives from Missouri and Members of the U.S. House from Maryland. We ought to strive for some consistency. So, just edit the proposal, and add any comments after it. Thanks, Lou I 12:30, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Done!

Category:Members of the U.S. House of Representatives is cleared out of individual reps. They are all now in their respecitve state-specific categories. For some reason, only last names starting with M and S where there. Fplay 01:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed categories

  1. Each state should hacve a category for current and former House members, in the form of U.S. Representatives from Statename. Each category should have a parent category entry of [[Category:Members of the U.S. House of Representatives| ]].
  2. An additional category should be reserved and used for current house members, such as U.S. House Members

discussion

House

The use of a blank in the parent category entry will force all 'subcategories' to the first page of the now massive Members. Once we get the list down to a workable size (none), we cabn reinsert the state names to get headings/toc entries. Lou I 12:30, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I think U.S. Representatives from State goes better with U.S. Senators from State, as many senators were also representatives at one point. --tomf688<TALK> 00:11, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Senate

We could continue a single category for the members of the U.S. Senate. The list is not so large as to make this unworkable, but I prefer the Category:U.S. Senators from Foo by state. Lou I 12:30, 5 September 2005 (UTC)


Both

People will want to view these things several ways: members of either body by party (especially after the 25th Congress or so), members by State (= state delegations). Is there an option for some sort of database from which the information can be pulled? If so, then the "XXth Congress" page could have links for "House membership by state" (with parties indicated), "House membership by party" (with state indicated). It seems counterproductive to clutter up the "Congress page" with a huge list of names when the accomplishments (or failures) of the Congress are more pertinent, as long as there's an easy way to find out who the participants/culprits were. The 108th Congress has four lines for legislation out of info that 'print preview' says would chew up 28 pages. Isn't this what hyperlinks are all about? Or am I misundestanding something? OtherDave 22:55, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Removing the list to its own article make sense.What does anyone else think? Lou I 12:22, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Individual Member Categories

Current use of categories for individual members:

  • The votes from CFD and renaming is now completed for [[Category:United States Senators from Foo]]. The U.S. Representatives category vote failed to reach consensus in any particular version of category name.
  • I have created a sample of a category heading for House members, at Category:U.S. Representatives from Kentucky. Please comment or edit it. After a pause for comments, I plan to duplicate this across the states, and for the senators as well.
  • Thinking about this also raised a question about the delegations articles. In the current use most states have two articles: the U.S. Congressional Delegations from Kentucky and the List of United States Senators from Kentucky. I'd like to suggest that we remove sanators from the delegation detail, leaving a note and link to the Senate list in the house (delegations) article.
  • U.S. Congressional Delegations from New York has a Senate section that uses a column form to present both 'Classes' of Senator in a single table. I'd also like to suggest that our List of Senators from xx use a similar format, but with the congress and dates link first, then the two classes as the second and third column. Comments?
  • If we do this, what about the few articles like List of United States Senators from Delaware that contain aditional information?
  • There are also a couple of clean up details, such as List of United States Senators from Kansas, which is a redirect to the delegations page.
  • In the wishful thinking department, I wish I could think of a better way to present the table of representatives by date/district some way that didn't scroll off the page to the right. Maybe something like a spreadsheet that keeps the first (date) column but hides the next 10, letting me see districts 11-15. Any suggestions are welcome...
  • After the pause for comments, I'll add a summary of the layout for individual member usage to the project page.

Thanks for your consideration, and intersperse comments above, or use my talk page Lou I 17:18, 16 October 2005 (UTC) talk

=Lists of Senators

I've modified the List of United States Senators from Texas as an example of the format I'd like to follow. The toughest part of this activity is the footnotes. My next target is Pennsylvania since it covers all Congresses. If anyone has comments let me know. I've also compiled a color and link schema from several of these articles, described below. Comments are welcome, but if you get them in early I can incorporate any improvements in this pass. Lou I 21:45, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

That's excellent. The format and the footnotes make sense. But it can be definitely hard work to collect that information at one time. Tfine80 21:49, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Party color codes in lists

Several lists of senators, delegations, and other politicians use color coding to show political parties. This table shows the most widely used colors, but they're not universal. (See the Texas Senator list linked above for an example.) After a pause for comments, I'll put this or a list improved by comments on the project page. Also, any suggestions on a color code for anti-federalist? Lou I 22:13, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

How about a Lilac or Light Cyan for the anti-federalists? Lilac seems to be the best contrast to the others, while a light Cyan retains a consistancy with the democratic-republican party that would follow it. I think the Light Cyan works best for that reason. --Barberio 15:19, 22 November 2005 (UTC)



color party party link code
CCCCCC Heading
DDEEFF democrat (D) [[Democratic Party (United States)|(D)]]
FFE8E8 republican (R) [[Republican Party (United States)|(R)]]
CCFFCC democratic-republican (D-R) [[Democratic-Republican Party (United States)|(D-R)]]
AAFFAA national-republican (N-R) [[National-Republican Party (United States)|(N-R)]]
FFFFCC whig (Whig) [[Whig Party (United States)|(Whig)]]
E6E6AA federalist (F) [[Federalist Party (United States)|(F)]]
E8FFE8 anti-federalist (A-F) [[Anti-Federalism|(A-F)]]

Another table


Political Party Hex Code
Federalist bgcolor=#E6E6AA
Democratic-Republican bgcolor=#CCFFCC
National Republican bgcolor=#FFF8DC
Democratic bgcolor=#DDEEFF
Know-Nothing bgcolor=#CCFFFF
Whig bgcolor=#FFFFCC
Republican bgcolor=#FFE8E8
Misc.* bgcolor=#FFFFFF
Territorial bgcolor=#ffdead

* Misc. = No party, indepedent, military, provisional, minor third party

Here's the table I've been referring to. Note the descrepancy under National Republican. jengod 19:37, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Advice?

Hiya, I need opinions on how I've been doing on expanding the Seventy-third United States Congress. Still some technically tweaking needed, but I think it's about as complete as it will be. I feel the need to create a template with all the Congresses listed on it (since it's hard to navigate between them as it is right now). I'd be willing to make such a template, if it's a good idea? Also, I am expanding the [[U.S. Congressional Delegations from <state>]] pages that have gaps before the 73rd Congress. I've already done so for U.S. Congressional Delegations from New Hampshire, U.S. Congressional Delegations from Mississippi, U.S. Congressional Delegations from Iowa, and U.S. Congressional Delegations from Rhode Island. Finally, I would like an opinion on United States House of Representatives, New Mexico District 1. There wasn't a clear example on those Congressional District pages (since there were so few of those pages) so I thought what I did (which was slightly based on Kansas') was presentable. But I would like a second opinion! YourNickname 22:43, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Finding a Congress - About the querstion of a navigation template... I don't think we need one, we now have two ways: the List of United States Congresses and the category Category:United States Congress by session which is easier to navigate. I use the category since it's link is already at the bottom of each article. (More comments later)... Lou I 00:04, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Congressional Lists (was Congressional Trivia Lists)

There are a lot of Presidential Trivia Lists, are there any Congressional trivia lists?

I am about to create a list of Congressional delegations ranked by partisan composition, which will be similar to the chart I created here.

Surely there are other trivia lists that I have overlooked. Articles about women members, African American members, and Asian members etc. could be included in a new Congressional Lists template. Anyone have some good suggestions on how to proceed? NoSeptember 23:05, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I created the new article Partisan mix of congressional delegations. NoSeptember 14:49, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I created Template:Congresslists, I welcome improvements (I'm sure I have not found all the articles that should be included). NoSeptember 13:20, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Great! I've edited it a little. I think it should be a general navigation box, not just trivia lists. What do you think? --Mark Adler 19:25, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Looks good, and you are right that "trivia" was really not the right term. We needed a congressional list template and it could be so much more; I hope it grows into something similar to the potuslists template. NoSeptember 08:42, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Individual members

Peter G. Gerry

Please take a look at Peter G. Gerry. This was on the requested articles list, it had 20 something links but no article. I had troubles with the infobox and need to add in preceeded by and succeeded by. But, it is coming along, and help is welcome. I also started a topic for his wife and added it to DYK. Joaquin Murietta 01:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Joseph McCarthy

Peer review has been requested for the Joseph McCarthy article. Please make all peer review comments at Wikipedia:Peer review/Joseph McCarthy/archive1. TomerTALK 20:29, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Acts

Would this be the place to discuss USA PATRIOT Act? I'm trying to get it up to scratch - it's a slow process. - Ta bu shi da yu 16:46, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Collaboration Of The Week

Is there any interest in regularly having a U.S. Congress Collaboration of the week?

Don't discuss it here on [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress]]. I've created a subpage for discussion and (if merited) creation: Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Congress/COTW. --Mark Adler (Markles) 16:55, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

New Table for House Elections

I think it'd be good to modify the table showing the results of the House Election to include the number of seats and percentage controlled by each party before the election. I'd try to do this myself, but I'm not too good at editing tables. This is the table I'm referring to, which just shows net change (not what it changed from):

Party Total Seats (change) Seat percentage
Democratic Party 204 -8 47.0%
Independent 1 -1 0.2%
Republican Party 229 +8 52.7%
Totals 4351 +0 100.0%

Political Lefty 22:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I put a little time into it and figured it out myself and came up with this instead (bold for the party name and percentage is meant to show majority status):
Party Seats Seat percentage Popular Vote
2000 Elected1 Net Change
  Democratic Party 212 204 -7 47.0% 45.0%
     Independent 2 1 -1 0.2% 0.5%
  Republican Party 221 229 +8 52.7% 49.6%
Totals 435 435 +0 100.0% 100.0%
Political Lefty 01:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Louisiana Congressional Districts

I went ahead and made all of the pages for the eight Congressional districts in Louisiana. I actually made a page for the eighth, and in general I think we should make pages for obsolete districts, since the Congressional succession box refers to them, and there's no need to have a broken link.

I based most of it on what had been done for the Nebraska pages. Is there a policy on what the pages should have, at the end? It seems to me that in addition to a description of the district itself, we should also have a list of the holders of the seat since its inception, and maybe the returns for the last few elections.

Also, there is no Senator succession box, is there? --Deville 21:09, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

General: I agree with everything you've done & said, Deville.
Standard format for Congressional District Articles: You could propose some standard format. Like: counties/cities/towns/etc in the district; previous representatives; previous elections (who ran, who won, results); next election (who's running); graphical map (imported from nationalatlas.gov); etc; etc; etc!
Senator succession box: There is such a template. See John Kerry.
—Mark Adler (markles) 21:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Better Rename A District

Please see my new discussion on renaming the district articles here: Talk:List of United States Congressional districts#Better Rename A District. —Markles 01:41, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

List of United States Senators from X

Hi there:

Markles put up merge notices on List of United States Senators from New York and U.S. Congressional Delegations from New York, intending to merge the former into the latter. I posted a message on his talk page, and he recommended that I post a message here to get some discussion going. If this is not the correct place for this discussion, please let me know what the correct location for it is.

Anyway, for each state, there are two articles, named "List of United States Senators from state" and "U.S. Congressional Delegations from state". The "U.S. Congressional Delegations…" article currently includes a table listing the Senators, although it is not identical to the tables in the "List…" article. Some options we could take with respect to these articles are:

Option 1 
Merge the "List…" article into the "U.S. Congressional Delegations…" article.
Option 2a
  1. Pull the "U.S. Senators" section out of the "U.S. Congressional Delegations…" article and merge it into the "List…" article.
  2. Rename the "List…" article as "U.S. Senate Delegations from state".
  3. Rename the "U.S. Congressional Delegations…" article as "U.S. House Delegations from state".
Option 2b
  1. Pull the "U.S. Senators" section out of the "U.S. Congressional Delegations…" article and merge it into the "List…" article.
  2. Rename the "U.S. Congressional Delegations…" article as "List of United States Representatives from state".

One point in favor of options 2a and 2b is that the "United States Senator from state" link in succession tables doesn't have to point to a section of an article but to an article in its own right. (The same point applies to "United States Representative from the nth District of state".)

So:

  • Does anyone have additional options to offer?
  • What is the best option?

— DLJessup (talk) 02:57, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, my initial reaction is that 2A sounds pretty good. Many of the Congressional Delegation articles are pretty montrously long anyhow. older≠wiser 03:11, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

After I wrote my above posting, I realized that I had left off Mark Adler's response to my proposal of what became options 2a and 2b above:

I'm on the fence about splitting Senators and Representatives. It's handy to keep it all in one article, but in a state like New York, it will be extremely cumbersome. And yet, the cumbersome-ness comes from the plentitude of House reps, not the senators.

Please look at his talk page to be sure that I didn't take the above excerpt out of context. I'm also writing him a message asking him to write here on that talk page as I write this. (And I just had a collision with Bkonrad while writing this as well….) — DLJessup (talk) 03:15, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm with Bkonrad in supporting 2A. jengod 21:21, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I also support 2A. It is more convenient to have senators and representatives in separate articles, in my opinion. Most states already have a separate list for senators, but a few do not. Whatever we do, it should be consistent. Academic Challenger 03:17, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
  • If this is a vote, I'd go with 2A. We also need to do a clean-up of the intro to categories, lists, delegations, etc. I had a draft of some of these ideas in the Texas lists, but discussion and comment were lacking, and my available 'pedia time lately has been reduced. Lou I 15:57, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


  • This issue seems to have been stagnant for awhile — I think it's worth revisiting.
Across the project, there are merge proposals in both directions. As of this moment, Kansas seems to be the only State whose Senate information page is absent, having been completely integrated into its Delegations page (leaving only a redirect behind). I posed a question about this on that article's discussion page: "Should other State Senatorial pages be treated similarly?" I'm interested in hearing some opinions in answer. Here's what Mark Adler (who may be growing tired of being referenced in the third person) had to say on the matter:

*No. I once thought yes. But now I think that there are some good reasons to have as many as three pages:

  1. U.S. Congressional Delegations from Foo
  2. List of United States Senators from Foo, and
  3. List of United States Representatives from Foo.
—User_talk:Markles 22:15, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
  • In a broader sense relative to this project, one might consider the above description as a sort of Option 3. After some consideration, I'd have to say I agree with that sentiment. Users on Wikipedia seem to want to view such compilations of information is several ways, and their collective taste at any given time is capriciously unpredictable. While creating alternate compilations for their own sake is wasteful (and silly), and one constant goal of Wiki is to curb excess, I think it's unnecessarily restrictive to limit our options in this case. My vote would be to continue our refinement of these varieties, and to keep all of them accessible. ~ Ross (ElCharismo) 04:17, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Templates

Senate prez. pro tem

NOTE: I've been adding templating to former Senate pro tems, just so you all know. Staxringold 01:08, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Navigation boxes

Why not make the the names is these great boxes alphabetical rather than chronological? That way the navigation wouldn't take so long. stilltim 20:53, 1 January 2006 (UTC)


Capitol Complex

Just wanted to throw an idea out there to see what people though. I made up an article for the United States Capitol Complex to kind of put together all the random articles for buildings we have. I've also been working on finishing/starting articles of congressional buildings/facilities and was trying to think about how to put them all together in a catchy way. I made up a template for Capitol Complex facilities but wasn't sure if it was appropriate or needed. Tell me what you think...if its pointless we wont use it:

v • d • e
United States Capitol Complex
United States Capitol
House
Senate
Library of Congress
Others

--ScottyBoy900Q∞ 07:28, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

See followup discussion at Template talk:USCongress. --Mark Adler (Markles) 18:45, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

US Rep Succession boxes

I am noticing that succession boxes seem to be applied inconsistently for Congressional members. For example, compare Henry Clay with Robert G. Simmons or with no succession box at all, say Bob Livingston. I'm sure it is possible that it just has not been done yet. Nebraska seems to be one of the best, as it has pages for each district. Should one consider that a standard? I could start on other states if people agree and make them look more like Nebraska. --Deville 02:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Here's a template I created last year: {{USRepSuccessionBox}}. I'm not thrilled with how it works, and it could use some help. See, e.g., John Olver.
    —Mark Adler (markles) 02:45, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
What don't you like about it? It seems ok to me. I also thought there should be a similar one for Senators. In any case, I think I'll plow through the Louisiana politicians for now . --Deville 21:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
There's a Senator one called U.S. Senator box, and another rep one at U.S. Representative box. --Mathwizard1232 01:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistency

Major inconsistency noted which is frustrating me. Some Reps have {{USRepSuccessionBox}}, which then links to "Member of the U.S. House of Representatives for State's xth district"; while others have a generic {{succession box}}, which links to "U.S. Congressional Delegations from State".

  • Yup, it's inconsistent, alright. I just created the template, {{USRepSuccessionBox}}, last year, and there are probably hundreds of articles which would need conversion. I suppose it could be part of our To Do list. I don't expect it to be done soon, because it's a lot of work: You'd have to figure out which district the Rep was in; and some reps moved districts (usually because of redistricting). It would also be handly to make an Incumbent version of the template, the way {{Incumbent U.S. Senator box}} works.—Markles 15:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

If we prefer the former, then a lot of converting needs to be going on, and it needs to be added to the to-do lists. Further, adding an article for each congressional district should also be added to the to-do list. (BTW, if we do prefer the former, I have one other comment/suggestion: do we really need "district" and "district_ord"? Can some logic be inserted that converts a number to its ordinal? (I'm not good enough on templates to know the answer to that).

  • I'm trying to get rid of the "district_ord" field: It would mean saying the person was a "Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Foo's district X" instead of "…from Foo's Xth district". Better yet (I strongly believe) would be someone writing the code which would account for 1→st 2→nd 3→rd and n4-n0, 11, 12, 13→th. That would be a lot better, but I don't know how to write the code.—Markles 15:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

As for having a page on each congressional district, is there a template (in the non-wiki sense of the word for it)? If not there should be. And, at the least, we can create them all now with at least the following: "See also [["U.S. Congressional Delegations from ''State''"]]

Comments on any of this anyone?? -- Sholom 13:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

5th District, Georgia, discouraged from contributing

This is to note I spent time yesterday revising the language on the John Lewis page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lewis_(politician) a record of which is on the Talk page for that article. The edits, I believe, improved the language and chronology turning what was difficult for the reader to understand to something easier to read. I also posted a note asking for clarification about a factual error on the Talk page of a user who had introduced the error. I included an Edit Summary and a discussion of my changes to the article Talk page. Today, I find my edits have been reversed and the clumsy difficult to read language re-introduced. The editor who reverted my edits did not include an Edit Summary, or address my comments on the article Talk page or on his own Talk page. This is discouraging. Unless one has the time and energy to engage in an editing war, the effort is akin to pushing a rock up hill. I can not engage in an editing war. Despite my interest, what has happened convinces me not to spend any more time with this congressional project. skywriter 18:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

senator template poll

Please take the following poll [6] in the Template:Current U.S. Senators page. We are trying to resolve which version of the template is more user friendly. Thanks --DuKot 07:35, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Pat Roberts

Hi.

We've had a complaint about some over-enthusiastic unsourced claims that were in the Pat Roberts article. Could someone familiar with the usual style of US Senator articles have a skim over it and see what it ought to look like? Thanks. Shimgray | talk | 23:23, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I've edited quite a few articles of Senators running for reelection, so I think I'm familiar with these articles. I just did a bit of editing of Pat Roberts; I think it's fine now.
Just out of curiosity - why post to this talk page, rather than the talk page of the Pat Roberts article? John Broughton 01:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Possibly because I told the nice person who wrote to us that I'd go and find some experienced editors to have a glance at it, and I figured that since the page hadn't had any apparent conflict or any activity on the talk page, they probably weren't watching there... but, on the other hand, I don't recall ever actually thinking that, so I probably just forgot to ;-)
Thanks for having a hack at it - it was looking a bit glowing in places. Shimgray | talk | 01:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

2006 Elections

I've copied the page for the 2004 House elections and am in the process of trying to modify it for 2006 to get a jump on things before November. United States House election, 2006 complete list is the new page, and I'm in need of all the help I can get. Chadlupkes 15:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


List of United States Representatives from *

Sorry, I saw this on the Special:Wantedpages page and added a list of all the reps from each state for the 109th Congress only. Didn't realize the project was looking for a comprehensive list of reps to each Congress. Dunno whether to leave it alone or to add == 109th Congress == at the top of each page. Tomcool 03:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Former House and Senate Members

I'm volunteering for completing the lists of former House members and Senators. I've filled in a good deal of material already today, and I think this project suits me just fine. Valadius 01:34, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Great!—Markles 02:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's an update on the status of the two lists:

  • Former Senators: Letters E, I, N, O, Q, U, V, Y, & Z (No X) completed.
  • Former Representatives: Letter I (No X) completed.

Valadius 00:15, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Another update:

  • Former Senators: Letters A, D, E, F, I, J, K, N, O, P, Q, U, V, Y, & Z (No X) completed.

Valadius 02:35, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Yet another update:

  • Former Senators: Letters A, B, D, E, F, G, I, J, K, L, N, O, P, Q, R, U, V, W, Y, & Z (No X) completed.
  • Former Representatives: Letters I, Q, & Z (No X) completed.

Valadius 04:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Officers

I question the use of the word "officers" that this group (which, in a month or two, when I have more time, I will hopefully join) has been using. The Senate defines officers to be the Secretary of the Senate, the Sergeant at Arms, and the Chaplain. The House defines officers to be the Clerk of the House, the Chief Administrative Officer, the Chaplin, and the Sergeant at arms (http://rules.house.gov/ruleprec/RII.htm) . Might it be appropriate for us to use the same definitions? eric 00:35, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

  • I think you're right. I started using "officers" last year to mean elected members who really should be called "leaders" (such as Speaker, Prez. Pro tem, etc). But now I think we should change employees to officers and officers to leaders. —Markles 01:18, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
    • of course nothing can be that simple :( . Not everyone listed as an employee is an officer. Thinking about it, it may be easier to change what is now "officers" to "leaders", and leave employees as is. I'm not really sure what is best, and am just thinking outloud. Also, I'm not sure where the best place to suggest it is, but we may want to create a page for the Chief Administrative Officer of the House. eric 01:45, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

"Classes" of senator

I have just looked at one of these lists and it is divided into "Class 1" and "Class 2". As a non-American I don't have a clue what that means. This sort of terminology really needs to be explained or linked to an explanation in another article. Please consider adding this feature. Thank you. 62.31.55.223 00:52, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

You mean like Classes of United States Senators? You're right that that should probably be linked to from the list pages. older ≠ wiser 01:29, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Question

I started an article a while ago concerning the incumbency advantage of the current US Congress. It's located at Congressional stagnation in the United States and I was wondering if it might merit inclusion into the list of splendid articles you've created. It's currently listed as a Good Article. Thanks. Thethinredline 11:56, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Tom DeLay on peer review

I have submitted Tom DeLay for peer review. I look forward to your comments at Wikipedia:Peer review/Tom DeLay/archive1. Thanks, NatusRoma | Talk 02:51, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

U.S. senators

Just to let you know, there are now under a hundred missing senators left on the Missing senators list. Also on another topic, I was wondering whether having a sussescion box *and* a template that had the names of every person that had held that posistion was redundant. What do you think?--Rayc 22:24, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Mystery Senators

These three people are currently on the lists of U.S. senators, but appear no where in Bioguide or political graveyard. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but probably aren't normally listed. Either that, or a hoax. Help clearing up this mystery would be appricieated:

Interesting. Connected to Rutherfraud B. Hayes election. Perhaps a footnote is in order.
"Never having abandoned his domicile in Louisiana, [Henry M. Spofford] returned to the city, and was about to resume his practice, when the earnest demand of the Democratic party drew him into the political field as a contestant for the senatorship. This was in 1876, when the Nicholls Legislature had been organized and was in full possession of the government of Louisiana. For this position Judge Spofford was nominated, and elected by a large majority. His title to the senatorial seat was opposed in the Senate by William Pitt Kellogg, who held a commission under the Legislature which had been displaced by the assembly which had organized under the governorship of Gov. Nicholls. The radical party then dominating in the Senate, after a long investigation and discussion by a committee, yielded to party demands and considerations, and against all truth, justice, and law, rejected Judge Spofford's claim. This contest imposed upon Judge Spofford an enormous amount of labor and expense at a time when his health had begun to fail. Repairing to a sanitary resort in the mountains of Virginia, a fatal disease, from which be had long suffered, developed with such potency, that before his family could reach him he departed this life on the 21st of August, 1880."
  • Spofford, Jeremiah, A genealogical record: including two generations in female lines of families spelling their name Spofford, Spafford, Spafard, and Spaford, descendants of John Spofford and Elizabeth Scott, who emigrated in 1638 from Yorkshire, England, and settled at Rowley, Essex County, Mass. Boston: Printed by Alfred Mudge & Son, 1888, 525 pgs. David 15:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Alexander J. Ovalle Democrat, 1885-1889, North Dakota
    • Didn't belong on that list. Now deleted.—Markles 15:00, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Franklin P. Glass Democrat, 1911-1913, Alabama
I found this:
"Glass, Franklin Potts AL D 1913.11.17 1914.02.14 app; never seated not entitled to seat" at [*http://home.earthlink.net/~dbratman/senate_chron.html]
There is a 1920 volume with biographical sketches of FP Glass, pere et fils, that would probably answer this question. I could only find a 1904 bio of the father, a Princeton educated newspaper owner.
  • see: A History of Birmingham and Its Environs by George M. Cruikshank, 1920 (volume two) pages 158 (FPG Sr.) and 160 (FPG Jr.) David 16:13, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

--Rayc 16:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Ovalle is either a hoax or doesn't count, as North Dakota became a state in 1889. Valadius 05:21, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposed portal

I have been working on Portals for a while, and have put together a proposed new portal to cover U.S. Government topics. The proposal is at Wikipedia:Portal/Proposals#United_States_Government, with a mock-up of the portal at User:Kmf164/United States Government. For a better idea of how portals work, check out Wikipedia:Featured portals. My thoughts were to use part of the portal to highlight featured articles and pictures. Another part of it could highlight current events (news stories, as well as things like current/pending legislation, nominations, Supreme Court cases/decisions, etc.). The third part could be some topic directory. The last section could highlight WikiProjects and things to do. I'd like to know if has suggestions on improving the draft. Also, would anyone here be interested in helping to maintain it, should it be approved. Maintanance would most importantly involve keeping the current events updated, but also choosing articles and pictures to feature, maintaining the list of articles/categories, etc. I think the best place to provide input is at User_talk:Kmf164/United_States_Government. Thanks. -Aude (talk | contribs) 18:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Senators

With the creation of the article on Alfred Iverson, Sr., Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/American politicians/Senators is now complete. This is due to the hard work of many; credit is due to Rayc and others for their efforts. Paul 04:22, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Hooray!!!! :) —Markles 12:58, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

United States Congressional Delegations by state

Earlier, folks mentioned splitting these into the existing Senate and Representative pages to avoid duplication. (option 2a). More recently, a couple of folks thought it was better to maintain 3 pages per state.

What's the current sentiment? I'd like to split, finding all references is hard and maintaining duplicate information is annoying. Now that things are shaping up, it seems a good time to do some well-considered re-organization based on experience.

--William Allen Simpson 10:58, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Continental and Confederation Congresses?

Hi there:

Just a question about the scope of this project. Is this project limited to the United States Congress under the Constitution, or does it extend to the Continental and Confederation Congresses? If the latter, does it also extend to the Stamp Act Congress?

If you would like my advice—I am not a member of this project—I would suggest starting a separate Wikipedia:WikiProject Continental Congress and limit your scope to the Constitutional Congress; the Continental Congresses and the Constitutional Congress are very different bodies.

— DLJessup (talk) 17:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi there:
As best I can determine, the scope of this project only extends to the Constitutional Congress. Therefore, I will shortly remove the {{Project Congress}} markers from Talk:Continental Congress, Talk:First Continental Congress, Talk:Second Continental Congress, and Talk:Congress of the Confederation, which I believe were placed on these articles in error. If you disagree with this move, please respond.
— DLJessup (talk) 13:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Two questions,

One. Do we need {{USCongressTerms}} AND {{USCongresses}}? They seems to be about analogs, however one contains links to other lists, but is arrainged in vertical rows, which is ALOT harder to read (IMAO).

Second, Image:Us senate seal.png is (In the image gallery), listed as the Seal of the Senate... so what's Image:Senate cap.PNG? Thanx 68.39.174.238 17:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


Nominate articles for Portal:United States

I've worked for the past month to update Portal:United States and keep it better maintained. Though, I think the portal would be even better with broader participation. One way to do that is instead of choosing the "selected article" myself each week, if others would nominate articles and help make decisions. (same goes for pictures, though these are stocked up through July 29) Articles about U.S. Congress and politics are more than welcome on the portal, as it's intended to cover all topics relating to the United States. If you would like to nominate or weigh in on what should be featured, please visit the portal. Thanks. -Aude (talk contribs) 21:35, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Important Note

There is a rather serious problem with some of the articles on former members of Congress. Many of them are known by several different names. Various pages which mention congressmen link to different names. For example, there is a person's first, middle and last name, e.g. James Christopher Healey, a person's first and last name with middle initial, e.g. James C. Healey and a person's first and last anme only, e.g. James Healey. It is vital that when you create an article on someone you check their other possible names to see if anything links there. There are possibly hundreds of pages which need to be redirected to articles, because people may find them and think there is no article on that person when there actually is, under a different name. I have been working on this for a week or so, but I would appreciate any help and suggestions on how to make this go faster. I have been going through the categories of members of the House and Senate from random states. I hope I am making this clear. Should ther be a note about this on the project page? Please respond. Thanks. Academic Challenger 07:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Style guide

Would there be any use for a style guide for articles on members of Congress? If so then I would be interested in putting one together...there seem to be many issues specific to these articles, for example incorporating Bioguide info. Getting a list of accepted conventions together might be a good start - I'd appreciate feedback. Thanks, Paul 05:17, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest two style guides, one for Senators, the others for Representatives. One reason is that Senate elections/races have their own articles (33 or 34 every two years), while House races (435 every two years) do not not.
Another issue to consider is that during even-numbered years there are election races, which deserve space; in odd-numbered years, there is very little reason (at least for the vast majority of Representatives) to devote any space to this. And it also makes sense to shrink the number of words for a given race once it is over (ideally, keeping most or all links in the article). So a "style guide" would, ideally, account for where in the election cycle the Senator/Representative is.
And then, for particulars: there have been discussions in several articles on Representatives about how much or little space to give to challengers, particularly before a primary: list all of the opposing party candidates, with links to their candidate websites (at one extreme), or not even mention by name the person who won the opposing major party primary (at the other extreme)? [I personally favor the inclusion of just one opponent's name, particularly after the primary, wikified, even if there is no corresponding wiki article at the moment -- and nothing more.] John Broughton 13:17, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I wrote a draft manual; take a look and let me know what you think - User:PaulHanson/Style guide Paul 18:10, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

There isn't anything about elections/races. Would you mind if I did a first draft/edit - adding a section on that, to the manual? John Broughton 18:31, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

There's lots missing from the manual. Add it and provide a summary of your changes. We'll have an official guide in no time. Paul 23:09, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, done. I hope that the first cut at the section is useful, at least to initiate productive discussion. John Broughton 13:23, 21 May 2006 (UTC)