The 115th Congress

[JoshData]

Ok. So. We just had an election:

• There were (I think) three special elections for the 114th Congress for three vacancies in the House (none in the senate?).
• This was an election of Class 3 senate seats.
• On the House side, this is one of the years where PR's delegate was up for election (PR does it every four years).

That means there were 3 (special) + 435 (representative) + 6 (delegate) + 34 (senator) = lots of elections. Last election's winning strategy was starting with a Google Docs spreadsheet that listed every election (as rows) and had a place for key data to be filled in in columns. @dwillis provided the initial spreadsheet last time. @DanielSchuman says the House will provide some info in the next few weeks.

Cribbing from #223, which was our 114th Congress issue, we have to make updates for:

• The results of special elections for the 114th Congress. There were 3 House seats that were vacant that are probably filled now (or upon swearing-in) through the end of the 114th Congress. (I don't think there were any special elections for the Senate).
• Incumbents that won reelection to the 115th Congress (copy their term info forward but update dates).
• Members that won election to a new seat, e.g. representative to senator or representatives who changed district number (likely in FL, NC, VA where the districts were redrawn).
• Incumbents that lost (move to the historical file, remove from the social media file).
• Winners who served in Congress previously that need their records moved forward from the historical file (and may need some ids added).
• Winners who are new (see the new member template).
• Changes in senate junior/senior status.
• Add end dates to all current leadership_roles for Members who are no longer serving.
• Fix start dates to actual swearing in dates if any legislators didn't get sworn in on the first day.
• Bioguide IDs must be filled in when they become available (we have a script to guess IDs).
• New Member birthdays
• New leadership roles / end dates on concluded roles.
• Committee assignments must be cleared.
• Photos need to be found for new members.
• New members' social media accounts must be added.
• After the 115th Congress begins, fill in the inevitable missing data, like office addresses (via the house_contacts.py and senate_contacts.py scripts) and committee membership.

[konklone]

I'm up for helping. It'd be easier for me to focus on this over the weekend, and am happy to coordinate then.

[mrumsky]

I'm up for helping too. Can probably also enlist the help of some folks in our data department.

[JoshData]

We're expecting to get XML from the House on new members soonish, so that'll speed things along....

[JoshData]

If someone is looking to help, taking on the Senate updates would be a good place to start. It'll have to be done semi-manually. Making a spreadsheet with columns state, name of winner, bioguide ID (if winner is a current or past member) would be a good first step.

[DanielSchuman]

For what it's worth, while there's 6 or 7 new senators, most already have bioguide IDs. Their phone numbers will be the number of the member they replace. For mailing, their rooms will change, but just sending to the member nAme at the Capitol is sufficient.

On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 11:59 AM Joshua Tauberer ***@***.***> wrote: If someone is looking to help, taking on the Senate updates would be a good place to start. It'll have to be done semi-manually. Making a spreadsheet with columns state, name of winner, bioguide ID (if winner is a current or past member) would be a good first step. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#375 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AC0a0Cwd1g5y6xxxtv_nl1oq-SG-9bkoks5rFZRhgaJpZM4Kuofy> .

-- - Daniel (Please excuse typos, send by phone )

[mrumsky]

Something like this to start?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_724nZosZopv4KSNtW-b2ZT7H26G4A5_QoproZPOOUw/edit?usp=sharing

[JoshData]

There's now data from the House on the members-elect:

http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/unofficial-115-member-elect-data.xml

So now we need some enterprising help getting this and @mrumsky's spreadsheet pulled into the YAML.

[JoshData]

I drafted a PR for doing the Senate (link above). Would appreciate if someone volunteered to do the House.

[JoshData]

New member data is in. Many thanks to @joelcollinsdc for taking point on the House data.

There are other things on the list that still need help, for anyone watching. (See the start of the issue.)

[dwillis]

I can jump on some of these - what's the best list to be working off?

[JoshData]

At the top of this thread, I guess.

Leadership roles and photos stand out as the major items. I'm wrapping up address/phone data now.

[DanielSchuman]

Senate data should be up today, BTW.

…

On Tue, Jan 3, 2017 at 3:15 PM, Joshua Tauberer ***@***.***> wrote: At the top of this thread, I guess. Leadership roles and photos stand out as the major items. I'm wrapping up address/phone data now. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#375 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AC0a0MJG4e8zqmGQuiEh1TcBA4TxFY7Nks5rOqx4gaJpZM4Kuofy> .

[JoshData]

Yep. Most of it.

[DanielSchuman]

If there's stuff missing, LMK and I can try to encourage.

…

On Tue, Jan 3, 2017 at 3:38 PM, Joshua Tauberer ***@***.***> wrote: Yep. Most of it. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#375 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AC0a0PIO0o_WSpD5Zi_Un9mnFPbm2CElks5rOrHfgaJpZM4Kuofy> .

[mrumsky]

Documentation says that influence_ids.py populates legislators' FEC and OpenSecrets IDs from the Influence Explorer API, but that source is out of commission now, no? Anyone have plans to update or replace influence_ids.py soon? Would it be duplicating efforts if we added the missing FEC and OpenSecrets IDs by hand?

[JoshData]

I think we can delete influence_ids.py now, and yes it would be totally fine to add those by hand. (I've always added those two field by hand anyway.)

[mrumsky]

We're on it.

[konklone]

On the remaining checkboxes (social media, leadership dates, and photos) -

• Social media PR: Updated Twitter and Facebook social media accounts #421
• There's a major PR for photos that just came in at Addresses #125 by adding some missing members of 115th Congress images#132, which I commented on.
• Leadership roles/dates seems like a manual thing, with a low amount of data. @joelcollinsdc @dwillis Would either of you be up for tackling this?

[joelcollinsdc]

@konklone i'll look at leadership roles

[JoshData]

Ok thanks everyone. We knocked off everything but photos and since photos has its own repo, I think we can close this.

[konklone]

And for the record, unitedstates/images#132 is now merged.