The main number for the Capital Building, where both the House and Senate meet, is 202-224-3121. The House and Senate.gov each post committee lists, biographies of current Congress members, calendars, parliamentary rules, etc.
Current and former members of the House and Senate are also listed in the Congressional Directory, which is posted on FDsys. The directory includes former legislators back to the 105th Congress (1997-98). For the most current information, call down to Washington.
You can get free biographical information on Congress members from the Congressional Directory, discussed above, and from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, as posted by Congress and the GPO. If you subscribe, CQ offers excellent Briefing Books that include complete election and campaign finance history, plus analysis of and statistics on each member's voting record. Financial Disclosure Forms back to 1991 and Campaign Finance Summary Reports back to 1989 are available on Lexis (LEGIS;MEMFD and LEGIS;CMPSUM, respectively). Pictures are posted in the Congressional Picture Directory on GPOAccess back to the 105th Congress (1996-97).
Congressional news is published in
Roll Call, The Hill, The Politico, CQ Weekly, CongressNow and CongressDaily. You can sign up for free email newsletters from Congressional Quarterly.
Congresspedia is a congress-focused wiki that often provides a useful summary of notable topics and sometimes provides the inside scoop.
State-Net provides at least one in-depth legislative news story each day for free on its Web site, with searchable archives going back about six months. For the inside scoop, CapWeb posts articles from the Hill newspaper and "Capitol Hill diaries written by Congressional staffers. Alternatively, lots of this sort of information - including insider news, historical bios, voting records, Dear Colleague letters and lists of staff members - are available though CQ's Washington Alert. Otherwise, see "News."
Documents: House Documents, Senate Documents and Treaty Documents are posted in Congressional Documents collection on FDsys back to the 104th Congress (1995-96). The House Calendar, Journal and Rules Manual are posted on U.S. House of Representative Page. The U.S. Senate Page posts the Senate Calendar, Senate Manual and other documents.
Rankings: Roll Call calculates a Power Ranking of all Senators and Representatives. The League of Conservation Voters gives a score of 0 to 100 for each member of Congress based on their environmental record. The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) rank the most corrupt member of Congress.
Salaries: Salaries for U.S. senators, representatives and staffers is posted in the Salary Database compiled by Legistorm.
Sessions: Each session of Congress lasts two years. The Senate posts a chart showing the years covered by the first through the current Congressional sessions. You can also find charts posted by LSDC and Thomas.
Staff:You can get information on Congressional staffers in Congressional Quarterly's Congressional Staff Directory. The Directory is available in print and electronically on CQ.com.
Votes: Voting results are posted free back to the 101st Congress (1989-90) on Thomas and back to the 102nd Congress (1991-92) by the Washington Post. You can look up older votes in CCH's Congressional Index and on Lexis (LEGIS;VOTES). If you have a citation, the Lexis format for pulling voting results is "1996 senate vote no 304".
For more: For good selections of Federal legislation links, check out USA.gov and/or Thomas and/or check out the "See Also" entries, below. For sites concerning campaign finance, government contracting and other useful disclosures, see the Insanely Useful Web Sites page posted by the Sunlight Foundation.
