For more than three decades, Vital Statistics on Congress, a joint effort undertaken by Brookings and the American Enterprise Institute, has been a go-to reference guide for Congressional watchers for impartial data on Congress and its members.
Over the years, we’ve received innumerable requests from scholars, members of the media, and students alike for up-to-date versions of the chapters in between printings of the published book itself.
We heard you and have now changed the way we present Vital Statistics’ data. Rather than continue to publish these data as a printed series, we’ve put the book online, making each chapter available online as a collection of spreadsheets for download at no cost. This new interactive format allows us to update and correct the data more frequently and make it accessible to anyone interested in learning about Congress. We’ve formatted the tables so that each is both printer-friendly and read-writable.
Date last updated: March 5, 2013
Chapter 1: Members of Congress
This chapter focuses on the diversity of members of Congress. It includes key data on apportionment, partisan makeup, regional party representation, seniority, prior occupations of members, and religious and minority representation for each Congress over time.
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Infographic: Congressional apportionment over time »
Chapter 2: Elections
Chapter 2 provides detailed information on the results of U.S. congressional elections, including those that occurred in 2012. Tables cover re-election rates, seats that changed parties, elections won with significant majorities and those that were close, comparisons between the district-level vote for president and for the district’s Representative, and conditions of election for the 112th and 113th Congress.
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Chapter 3: Campaign Finance
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Chapter 4: Committees
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Chapter 5: Congressional Staff and Operating Expenses
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Chapter 6: Workload
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Chapter 7: {TBD}
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Chapter 8: Voting Alignments
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