Below are links to data and APIs that may inspire an idea or help you build an app, but you aren’t limited to this data for the competition. We encourage you to join the Discussion Phase to share relevant data, existing software solutions, and solution ideas. We’ll add relevant data suggestions below.

The Workings of Government

The Sunlight Foundation’s Sunlight Labs APIs:
-Congress API: Data on individual members of Congress and on Congress’ daily work.
-Open States API: Data on state politics including legislator info, voting records, and upcoming bills.
-Transparency Data API: Data on campaign contributions, and federal lobbying, grants, and contracts.
-Capitol Words API: Enables you to search words and phrases used by legislators in the Congressional Record.

GovTrack Data on U.S. Congress: Data on every member of Congress and roll call vote ever, plus full text of bills going back to 1987 and current committee assignments.

OpenSecrets.org Data (Center for Responsive Politics): Campaign finance, lobbying and personal finance data for members of Congress and the executive branch.

MapLight U.S. Congress Data: Data on campaign finance, bill positions, and ballot measures.

OpenCongress.org U.S. Congress Data: Data on everything from official bill info to news and blog coverage to user-generated votes on bills and much more.

No Labels Data on members of Congress who have signed pledges: List of members of Congress who have pledged to oppose changes to Social Security or pledged to oppose new or increased taxes.

No Labels info on primary types by state: Data on how primaries are run in each state.

NY Times Campaign Finance API: Campaign finance data from the filings with the U.S. Federal Election Commission.

Cosponsorship Networks Data from James Fowler, Andrew Scott Waugh, and Yunkyu Sohn of the University of California, San Diego. Data on Cosponsorships in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives for the 93rd to 110th Congresses.

Ideological Cartography data from Adam Bonica at Stanford University. Forecast data on ideology of Congressional candidates from 1980-2012.

Public Opinion

Pollster API from Huffington Post: The Pollster API provides programmatic access to the results of tens of thousands of opinion polls collected by the Huffington Post since 2004 as well as their estimates of the current opinion on various candidates and topics.

Government Spending

Government Accountability Office (GAO) financial statement for the entire U.S. federal government’s operations (compiled by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under the auspices of the Treasury Department and audited by the GAO)

Congressional Budget Office Historical Budget data: CBO data on the government’s revenues, outlays, and deficits or surpluses based on data published by the Office of Management and Budget.

Congressional Budget Office Long term Budget projections: CBO budget projections and cost estimates over a 10-year window.

Reform Efforts

No Labels Just the Facts: Background briefings on issues related to gridlock and effective working government.

No Labels 12 ways to make Congress work: No Labels’ proposals to break gridlock, promote constructive discussion and reduce polarization in Congress.

No Labels 11 ways to make the Presidency work: No Labels’ proposals to make the Presidency more effective and create a new politics of problem-solving in America.

Want to add to the data above? Join the Discussion Phase to suggest other relevant data and APIs, or to share ideas and existing apps.