Using Project Vote Smart

STEP 1. CLICK on the link to Project Vote Smart to begin.

NOTE: The first page on Project Vote Smart may be an introductory page, and the content may vary from time to time. You may find the link described below on the first page, or you may need to click on a link that will take you to another page to begin your use of Project Vote Smart.

STEP 2. CLICK on "Current Elected Officials" at the top of the page

STEP 3. Click on "Congress from the drop-down menu

STEP 4. Select "California" from the drop-down menu
and CLICK on "GO"

STEP 5. Select a Member of Congress

[NOTE: In this example, I am using the Representative for the California 37th Congressional District.]

STEP 6. Under the Member's photo are links; CLICK on "Campaign Finance"

Another link will appear, CLICK on "Campaign Finance" again.

A window for this member of Congress will open at www.opensecrets.org
This page contains

• total campaign contributions raised
• total money spent
• the percentage of money raised from individuals
• the percentage of money raised from Political Action Committees (PACs)
• the percentage of money raised from Business and Labor PACS

The data on this page is for the 2005 - 2006 election cycle. This data is incomplete because it is reporting data for a partial election cycle. The last complete election cycle was 2003-2004; therefore, you will need to go to the data for the 2004 election.

STEP 7. CLICK on "Sector Totals" for campaign contributions by catagory of special interest group.

The campaign contributions arranged by category, or Sector, are presented in a graph and in a table.

The data you need is in the "TOTAL" column of the table. The dollar amounts should be converted to percentages. In your paper report the data for all the Members of Congress you have selected in 1 table or graph.

1. Go back to the Member's Biography Page (this is Step 5 above).

STEP 6. CLICK "Special Interest Groups"

STEP 7. Select the issues for this Member of Congress.

[NOTE: There is a drop-down menue at the top of this page you can use to select a catagory of issue; however, you can simply ignore this menue and scroll down through the issues and the Special Interest Group Ratings for this Member of Congress. Each catagory includes the ratings for several interest groups and for several years. Just pick ONE interest group rating in each broad catagory. Usually, the ratings of different special interest groups reflect the opposite issue orientation. Thus, to select both ratings you will be reporting data that is redundant.

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Using Congressional District Data from the U.S. Census

STEP 8: Return to the "Links" page on the Web Page for POSC 322.

STEP 9: Select "California" and the appropriate district number from the drop-down menu for "state" and "Congressional District".

STEP 10: Selecting data from the Congressional District Census Data

When selecting data, only select one measure of a variable when several variables are available. For example:

• If you want a measure of race, select only white; the other data on race or ethnicity would be redundant
  
• When selecting some of the measure of income, again you only need to select one variable; more than one variable in this catagory also is redundant.
  

STEP 11: Return to the "Links" page on the web site for Posc 322. Click on the link to the California Senate to find data about party registration or voting behavior in the 2000 presidential election.

Click on the appropriate Congressional District Number

Select either the perecentage of Democrats AND the percentage of Repubicans in that Congressional District, OR the percentage of votes cast for Bush and the percentage of votes cast for Gore in the 2000 presidential election to determine if the district is safe or competitive. DO NOT select both party registration and presidential vote. Once again that would be redundant.