•First things first:  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.

Second things second: http://thomas.loc.gov 
Find full text bills here.  Very awesome and useful!

Very up-to-date database info: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ 
http://www.yourcongress.com/ : "It's your Congress. Learn to laugh." Includes haikus about the members of Congress, which gives you an idea of their personality.  For example, Senator Mikulski's haiku is : 
"Fiery and abrupt
elbows you out of the way
not big on manners"  

Newspapers: You can also read the newspaper! Whoa!
Search newspapers online: http://www.newspapers.com to find a newspaper for current information.
OR, these newspapers are really good for Senate research:
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.

Know where the Senators' money is coming from: http://www.opensecrets.org/1998elect/index.htm
http://www.tray.com/fecinfo/
http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/index.asp : Index of PACs. (from the Open Secrets website)
(What is a political action committee?) 

Look up voting records for floor votes for every Senator: http://www.senate.gov/activities/rollcall.html 
Vote Smart: Find everything here. This is an excellent site to see how your elected officials are performing in their jobs, and also useful for our purposes.  http://www.vote-smart.org/index.phtml 
Voter Information Services: http://www.vis.org/

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

Find Expert Information (examples):
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).

http://www.grannyd.com : Doris, an 80 year old woman, walked across the country to fight for campaign finance reform.  This is really inspiring and has good info about campaign finance reform, which is a BIG issue!



ALSO:
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.