In r-congress/ppcong: Interfacing with ProPublica's 'Congress' API

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
  collapse = TRUE,
  comment = "#>",
  fig.path = "man/figures/README-",
  out.width = "100%"
)
tibble:::op.tibble
options(width = 90, tibble.print_min = 5, tibble.print_max = 5)
library(ppcong)

ppcong

A simple interface for interacting with ProPublica's Congress API, which provides data about current and former members of both chambers of the U.S. Congress.

Installation

You can install the released version of ppcong from CRAN with:

install.packages("ppcong")

And the development version from GitHub with:

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("mkearney/ppcong")

Members

Get "house" data from the "116"th Congress:

## get and preview house data from 116th congress
h116 <- ppc_members(congress = "116", chamber = "house")
h116

Get "senate" data from the "110"th Congress:

## get and preview senate data from 110th congress
s110 <- ppc_members(congress = "110", chamber = "senate")
s110

Statements

Get statements released by members of Congress by date

## get and preview statements from congress on a given day
sts <- ppc_statements("2017-05-08")
sts

Votes

Get statements released by members of Congress by date

## get and preview congressional votes information
vts <- ppc_votes("both")
vts

Bills

Search for bills in Congress

## get and preview congressional bills information
hc_bls <- ppc_bills("health care")
hc_bls

Committees

Get lists of congressional committees

## get and preview committees information for Senators in 115th Congress
cmt <- ppc_committees("115", chamber = "senate")
cmt

API Key

Use of the ProPublica API requires a valid key, which you can obtain by completing the form found at the following URL: https://www.propublica.org/datastore/api/propublica-congress-api

Once you've obtained an API key, you can either include it in every request, e.g.,

## include API key in request
s116 <- ppc_members(116, "senate", api_key = "as9d78f6aayd9fy2fq378a9ds876fsas89d7f")

Or for the duration of any given session, you can set the API key once via the ppc_api_key() function

## set as environment variable for the remainder of current session
ppc_api_key("as9d78f6aayd9fy2fq378a9ds876fsas89d7f")

If you'd like to set the API key and store it for use in future sessions, use set_renv = TRUE

## append as environment variable in user's home .Renviron file
ppc_api_key("as9d78f6aayd9fy2fq378a9ds876fsas89d7f", set_renv = TRUE)

r-congress/ppcong documentation built on Dec. 16, 2019, 12:45 a.m.