Straight from the horses' mouths:
http://www.senate.gov
•This is one of the best sites for researching the Senate, of course.  Find links to your Senator’s personal page.• Find links to committee pages.  •Find bills.
http://www.senate.gov/activities/rollcall.html 
Look up roll call votes for every Senator.
http://thomas.loc.gov 
Find full text bills here as well as all Senate floor remarks.  Obviously useful.

Databases and Policy Tracking Sites:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress
Up-to-date database info.
http://www.yourcongress.com
"It's your Congress. Learn to laugh," featuring haikus.
http://www.vote-smart.org/index.phtml
Information on candidates and issues.
http://www.vis.org
Congressional report cards and votes.

News:
http://www.rollcall.com
"The newspaper of Capitol Hill since 1955."
http://www.hillnews.com
Another Capitol Hill newspaper.
http://www.c-span.org
C-SPAN website.  (C-SPAN is, of course, the first TV station dedicated to politics.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com
The Washington Post.

Money:
http://www.opensecrets.org
The scoop on where politicians get their money.
http://www.tray.com/fecinfo/
Data on money moving to the national political arena.

Political Parties in the Senate:
http://www.democrats.org
Democratic National Committee (DNC).
http://www.rnc.org
Republican National Committee (RNC).

Expert Information:
http://www.soils.org
Soil Science Society of America.
http://www.mayohealth.org
Mayo Clinic Web Site.

Interest Groups:
http://www.aclu.org
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
http://www.pirg.org
Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG) (consumer and environment protection). 
http://www.now.org
The National Organization for Women (NOW).
http://www.pnhp.org
Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP).
http://www.feminist.org/default.asp
Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance (FMLA).
http://www.naacp.org
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). 
http://www.nclr.org
National Counsel of La Raza (La Raza - The Race) (NCLR).
http://www.lulac.org
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).
http://www.aflcio.org
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
http://www.greenpeaceusa.org
Greenpeace USA. 
http://www.ngltf.org
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF).
http://www.aarp.org/priorities
American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).
http://www.childrensdefense.org
Children's Defense Fund (CDF).
http://www.internationalanswer.org
Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER).
http://www.nra.org
The National Rifle Association (NRA).
http://www.d-n-i.net
Defense and the National Interest. (DNI).
http://www.aaic.org
Association for the Advancement of Industrial Crops (AAIC).


Hot Tips from Virginia:
Call your Senate offices, and talk to the people that work for them.  They can send you bios (which are on the websites too) and also talk to them so you get an idea of the personality of your Senator. 
Watch C-SPAN2.  It's the live broadcast of the Senate.  It gives you an idea of the personality of the Senator, which helps you play your Senator.

 

E-mail me (Virginia Hawthorne) with questions, comments and suggestions at vhawthorne@goucher.edu.  If there's a piece of information you can't find, I can find it for you.

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