Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress/Archives/2006

New Table for House Elections
I think it'd be good to modify the table showing the results of the House Election to include the number of seats and percentage controlled by each party before the election. I'd try to do this myself, but I'm not too good at editing tables. This is the table I'm referring to, which just shows net change (not what it changed from):

Political Lefty 22:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I put a little time into it and figured it out myself and came up with this instead (bold for the party name and percentage is meant to show majority status):


 * Political Lefty 01:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Louisiana Congressional Districts
I went ahead and made all of the pages for the eight Congressional districts in Louisiana. I actually made a page for the eighth, and in general I think we should make pages for obsolete districts, since the Congressional succession box refers to them, and there's no need to have a broken link.

I based most of it on what had been done for the Nebraska pages. Is there a policy on what the pages should have, at the end? It seems to me that in addition to a description of the district itself, we should also have a list of the holders of the seat since its inception, and maybe the returns for the last few elections.

Also, there is no Senator succession box, is there? --Deville 21:09, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * General: I agree with everything you've done & said, Deville.
 * Standard format for Congressional District Articles: You could propose some standard format. Like: counties/cities/towns/etc in the district; previous representatives; previous elections (who ran, who won, results); next election (who's running); graphical map (imported from nationalatlas.gov); etc; etc; etc!
 * Senator succession box: There is such a template. See John Kerry.
 * &mdash;GoldRingChip 21:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Better Rename A District
Please see my new discussion on renaming the district articles here: Talk:List of United States Congressional districts. &mdash;GoldRingChip 01:41, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

List of United States Senators from X
Hi there:

GoldRingChip put up merge notices on List of United States Senators from New York and U.S. Congressional Delegations from New York, intending to merge the former into the latter. I posted a message on his talk page, and he recommended that I post a message here to get some discussion going. If this is not the correct place for this discussion, please let me know what the correct location for it is.

Anyway, for each state, there are two articles, named "List of United States Senators from state" and "U.S. Congressional Delegations from state". The "U.S. Congressional Delegations…" article currently includes a table listing the Senators, although it is not identical to the tables in the "List…" article. Some options we could take with respect to these articles are:


 * Option 1 : Merge the "List…" article into the "U.S. Congressional Delegations…" article.
 * Option 2a
 * Pull the "U.S. Senators" section out of the "U.S. Congressional Delegations…" article and merge it into the "List…" article.
 * Rename the "List…" article as "U.S. Senate Delegations from state".
 * Rename the "U.S. Congressional Delegations…" article as "U.S. House Delegations from state".


 * Option 2b
 * Pull the "U.S. Senators" section out of the "U.S. Congressional Delegations…" article and merge it into the "List…" article.
 * Rename the "U.S. Congressional Delegations…" article as "List of United States Representatives from state".

One point in favor of options 2a and 2b is that the "United States Senator from state" link in succession tables doesn't have to point to a section of an article but to an article in its own right. (The same point applies to "United States Representative from the nth District of state".)

So:
 * Does anyone have additional options to offer?
 * What is the best option?

— DLJessup (talk) 02:57, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, my initial reaction is that 2A sounds pretty good. Many of the Congressional Delegation articles are pretty montrously long anyhow. older≠wiser 03:11, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

After I wrote my above posting, I realized that I had left off GoldRingChip's response to my proposal of what became options 2a and 2b above:
 * I'm on the fence about splitting Senators and Representatives. It's handy to keep it all in one article, but in a state like New York, it will be extremely cumbersome. And yet, the cumbersome-ness comes from the plentitude of House reps, not the senators.

Please look at his talk page to be sure that I didn't take the above excerpt out of context. I'm also writing him a message asking him to write here on that talk page as I write this. (And I just had a collision with Bkonrad while writing this as well….) — DLJessup (talk) 03:15, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm with Bkonrad in supporting 2A. jengod 21:21, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I also support 2A. It is more convenient to have senators and representatives in separate articles, in my opinion. Most states already have a separate list for senators, but a few do not. Whatever we do, it should be consistent. Academic Challenger 03:17, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If this is a vote, I'd go with 2A. We also need to do a clean-up of the intro to categories, lists, delegations, etc. I had a draft of some of these ideas in the Texas lists, but discussion and comment were lacking, and my available 'pedia time lately has been reduced. Lou I 15:57, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * This issue seems to have been stagnant for awhile &mdash; I think it's worth revisiting.


 * Across the project, there are merge proposals in both directions. As of this moment, Kansas seems to be the only State whose Senate information page is absent, having been completely integrated into its Delegations page (leaving only a redirect behind). I posed a question about this on that article's discussion page: "Should other State Senatorial pages be treated similarly?" I'm interested in hearing some opinions in answer. Here's what GoldRingChip (who may be growing tired of being referenced in the third person) had to say on the matter:

*No. I once thought yes. But now I think that there are some good reasons to have as many as three pages: &mdash;User_talk:GoldRingChip 22:15, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) U.S. Congressional Delegations from Foo
 * 2) List of United States Senators from Foo, and
 * 3) List of United States Representatives from Foo.


 * In a broader sense relative to this project, one might consider the above description as a sort of Option 3. After some consideration, I'd have to say I agree with that sentiment. Users on Wikipedia seem to want to view such compilations of information is several ways, and their collective taste at any given time is capriciously unpredictable. While creating alternate compilations for their own sake is wasteful (and silly), and one constant goal of Wiki is to curb excess, I think it's unnecessarily restrictive to limit our options in this case. My vote would be to continue our refinement of these varieties, and to keep all of them accessible. ~ Ross (ElCharismo) 04:17, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Navigation boxes
Why not make the the names is these great boxes alphabetical rather than chronological? That way the navigation wouldn't take so long. stilltim 20:53, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Capitol Complex
Just wanted to throw an idea out there to see what people though. I made up an article for the United States Capitol Complex to kind of put together all the random articles for buildings we have. I've also been working on finishing/starting articles of congressional buildings/facilities and was trying to think about how to put them all together in a catchy way. I made up a template for Capitol Complex facilities but wasn't sure if it was appropriate or needed. Tell me what you think...if its pointless we wont use it:

--ScottyBoy900Q ∞ 07:28, 31 December 2005 (UTC)


 * See followup discussion at Template talk:USCongress. --GoldRingChip 18:45, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

US Rep Succession boxes
I am noticing that succession boxes seem to be applied inconsistently for Congressional members. For example, compare Henry Clay with Robert G. Simmons or with no succession box at all, say Bob Livingston. I'm sure it is possible that it just has not been done yet. Nebraska seems to be one of the best, as it has pages for each district. Should one consider that a standard? I could start on other states if people agree and make them look more like Nebraska. --Deville 02:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Here's a template I created last year: .  I'm not thrilled with how it works, and it could use some help.  See, e.g., John Olver. &mdash;GoldRingChip 02:45, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * What don't you like about it? It seems ok to me.  I also thought there should be a similar one for Senators.  In any case, I think I'll plow through the Louisiana politicians for now .  --Deville 21:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * There's a Senator one called U.S. Senator box, and another rep one at U.S. Representative box. --Mathwizard1232 01:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistency
Major inconsistency noted which is frustrating me. Some Reps have USRepSuccessionBox, which then links to "Member of the U.S. House of Representatives for State's xth district"; while others have a generic, which links to "U.S. Congressional Delegations from State".


 * Yup, it's inconsistent, alright. I just created the template, USRepSuccessionBox, last year, and there are probably hundreds of articles which would need conversion.  I suppose it could be part of our To Do list.  I don't expect it to be done soon, because it's a lot of work: You'd have to figure out which district the Rep was in; and some reps moved districts (usually because of redistricting). It would also be handly to make an Incumbent version of the template, the way Incumbent U.S. Senator box works.&mdash;GoldRingChip 15:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

If we prefer the former, then a lot of converting needs to be going on, and it needs to be added to the to-do lists. Further, adding an article for each congressional district should also be added to the to-do list. (BTW, if we do prefer the former, I have one other comment/suggestion: do we really need "district" and "district_ord"? Can some logic be inserted that converts a number to its ordinal?  (I'm not good enough on templates to know the answer to that).


 * I'm trying to get rid of the "district_ord" field: It would mean saying the person was a "Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Foo's district X" instead of "…from Foo's Xth district".  Better yet (I strongly believe) would be someone writing the code which would account for 1→st 2→nd 3→rd and n4-n0, 11, 12, 13→th.  That would be a lot better, but I don't know how to write the code.&mdash;GoldRingChip 15:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

As for having a page on each congressional district, is there a template (in the non-wiki sense of the word for it)? If not there should be. And, at the least, we can create them all now with at least the following: "See also "U.S. Congressional Delegations from State"

Comments on any of this anyone?? -- Sholom 13:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

5th District, Georgia, discouraged from contributing
This is to note I spent time yesterday revising the language on the John Lewis page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lewis_(politician) a record of which is on the Talk page for that article. The edits, I believe, improved the language and chronology turning what was difficult for the reader to understand to something easier to read. I also posted a note asking for clarification about a factual error on the Talk page of a user who had introduced the error. I included an Edit Summary and a discussion of my changes to the article Talk page. Today, I find my edits have been reversed and the clumsy difficult to read language re-introduced. The editor who reverted my edits did not include an Edit Summary, or address my comments on the article Talk page or on his own Talk page. This is discouraging. Unless one has the time and energy to engage in an editing war, the effort is akin to pushing a rock up hill. I can not engage in an editing war. Despite my interest, what has happened convinces me not to spend any more time with this congressional project. skywriter 18:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

senator template poll
Please take the following poll in the Template:Current U.S. Senators page. We are trying to resolve which version of the template is more user friendly. Thanks --DuKot 07:35, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Pat Roberts
Hi.

We've had a complaint about some over-enthusiastic unsourced claims that were in the Pat Roberts article. Could someone familiar with the usual style of US Senator articles have a skim over it and see what it ought to look like? Thanks. Shimgray | talk | 23:23, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I've edited quite a few articles of Senators running for reelection, so I think I'm familiar with these articles. I just did a bit of editing of Pat Roberts; I think it's fine now.


 * Just out of curiosity - why post to this talk page, rather than the talk page of the Pat Roberts article? John Broughton 01:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Possibly because I told the nice person who wrote to us that I'd go and find some experienced editors to have a glance at it, and I figured that since the page hadn't had any apparent conflict or any activity on the talk page, they probably weren't watching there... but, on the other hand, I don't recall ever actually thinking that, so I probably just forgot to ;-)
 * Thanks for having a hack at it - it was looking a bit glowing in places. Shimgray | talk | 01:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

2006 Elections
I've copied the page for the 2004 House elections and am in the process of trying to modify it for 2006 to get a jump on things before November. United States House election, 2006 complete list is the new page, and I'm in need of all the help I can get. Chadlupkes 15:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

List of United States Representatives from *
Sorry, I saw this on the Special:Wantedpages page and added a list of all the reps from each state for the 109th Congress only. Didn't realize the project was looking for a comprehensive list of reps to each Congress. Dunno whether to leave it alone or to add == 109th Congress == at the top of each page. Tomcool 03:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Former House and Senate Members
I'm volunteering for completing the lists of former House members and Senators. I've filled in a good deal of material already today, and I think this project suits me just fine. Valadius 01:34, 16 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Great!&mdash;GoldRingChip 02:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's an update on the status of the two lists:


 * Former Senators: Letters E, I, N, O, Q, U, V, Y, & Z (No X) completed.
 * Former Representatives: Letter I (No X) completed.

Valadius 00:15, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Another update:


 * Former Senators: Letters A, D, E, F, I, J, K, N, O, P, Q, U, V, Y, & Z (No X) completed.

Valadius 02:35, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Yet another update:


 * Former Senators: Letters A, B, D, E, F, G, I, J, K, L, N, O, P, Q, R, U, V, W, Y, & Z (No X) completed.
 * Former Representatives: Letters I, Q, & Z (No X) completed.

Valadius 04:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Officers
I question the use of the word "officers" that this group (which, in a month or two, when I have more time, I will hopefully join) has been using. The Senate defines officers to be the Secretary of the Senate, the Sergeant at Arms, and the Chaplain. The House defines officers to be the Clerk of the House, the Chief Administrative Officer, the Chaplin, and the Sergeant at arms (http://rules.house.gov/ruleprec/RII.htm). Might it be appropriate for us to use the same definitions? eric 00:35, 23 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think you're right. I started using "officers" last year to mean elected members who really should be called "leaders" (such as Speaker, Prez. Pro tem, etc).  But now I think we should change employees to officers and officers to leaders. &mdash;GoldRingChip 01:18, 23 April 2006 (UTC)


 * of course nothing can be that simple :( . Not everyone listed as an employee is an officer.  Thinking about it, it may be easier to change what is now "officers" to "leaders", and leave employees as is.  I'm not really sure what is best, and am just thinking outloud.  Also, I'm not sure where the best place to suggest it is, but we may want to create a page for the Chief Administrative Officer of the House. eric 01:45, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

"Classes" of senator
I have just looked at one of these lists and it is divided into "Class 1" and "Class 2". As a non-American I don't have a clue what that means. This sort of terminology really needs to be explained or linked to an explanation in another article. Please consider adding this feature. Thank you. 62.31.55.223 00:52, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


 * You mean like Classes of United States Senators? You're right that that should probably be linked to from the list pages. older ≠ wiser 01:29, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Question
I started an article a while ago concerning the incumbency advantage of the current US Congress. It's located at Congressional stagnation in the United States and I was wondering if it might merit inclusion into the list of splendid articles you've created. It's currently listed as a Good Article. Thanks. Thethinr e dline 11:56, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Tom DeLay on peer review
I have submitted Tom DeLay for peer review. I look forward to your comments at Peer review/Tom DeLay/archive1. Thanks, NatusRoma | Talk 02:51, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

U.S. senators
Just to let you know, there are now under a hundred missing senators left on the Missing senators list. Also on another topic, I was wondering whether having a sussescion box *and* a template that had the names of every person that had held that posistion was redundant. What do you think?--Rayc 22:24, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Mystery Senators
These three people are currently on the lists of U.S. senators, but appear no where in Bioguide or political graveyard. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but probably aren't normally listed. Either that, or a hoax. Help clearing up this mystery would be appricieated:


 * Henry M. Spofford, Democrat, 1877, Louisiana
 * Interesting. Connected to Rutherfraud B. Hayes election. Perhaps a footnote is in order.
 * "Never having abandoned his domicile in Louisiana, [Henry M. Spofford] returned to the city, and was about to resume his practice, when the earnest demand of the Democratic party drew him into the political field as a contestant for the senatorship. This was in 1876, when the Nicholls Legislature had been organized and was in full possession of the government of Louisiana. For this position Judge Spofford was nominated, and elected by a large majority.  His title to the senatorial seat was opposed in the Senate by William Pitt Kellogg, who held a commission under the Legislature which had been displaced by the assembly which had organized under the governorship of Gov. Nicholls.  The radical party then dominating in the Senate, after a long investigation and discussion by a committee, yielded to party demands and considerations, and against all truth, justice, and law, rejected Judge Spofford's claim.  This contest imposed upon Judge Spofford an enormous amount of labor and expense at a time when his health had begun to fail. Repairing to a sanitary resort in the mountains of Virginia, a fatal disease, from which be had long suffered, developed with such potency, that before his family could reach him he departed this life on the 21st of August, 1880."
 * Spofford, Jeremiah, A genealogical record: including two generations in female lines of families spelling their name Spofford, Spafford, Spafard, and Spaford, descendants of John Spofford and Elizabeth Scott, who emigrated in 1638 from Yorkshire, England, and settled at Rowley, Essex County, Mass. Boston:  Printed by Alfred Mudge & Son, 1888, 525 pgs. David 15:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Alexander J. Ovalle Democrat, 1885-1889, North Dakota
 * Didn't belong on that list. Now deleted.&mdash;GoldRingChip 15:00, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Franklin P. Glass Democrat, 1911-1913, Alabama
 * I found this:
 * "Glass, Franklin Potts           AL  D       1913.11.17  1914.02.14  app; never seated          not entitled to seat" at [*http://home.earthlink.net/~dbratman/senate_chron.html]
 * There is a 1920 volume with biographical sketches of FP Glass, pere et fils, that would probably answer this question. I could only find a 1904 bio of the father, a Princeton educated newspaper owner.
 * see: A History of Birmingham and Its Environs by George M. Cruikshank, 1920 (volume two) pages 158 (FPG Sr.) and 160 (FPG Jr.) David 16:13, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

--Rayc 16:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Ovalle is either a hoax or doesn't count, as North Dakota became a state in 1889. Valadius 05:21, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposed portal
I have been working on Portals for a while, and have put together a proposed new portal to cover U.S. Government topics. The proposal is at Portal/Proposals, with a mock-up of the portal at User:Kmf164/United States Government. For a better idea of how portals work, check out Featured portals. My thoughts were to use part of the portal to highlight featured articles and pictures. Another part of it could highlight current events (news stories, as well as things like current/pending legislation, nominations, Supreme Court cases/decisions, etc.). The third part could be some topic directory. The last section could highlight WikiProjects and things to do. I'd like to know if has suggestions on improving the draft. Also, would anyone here be interested in helping to maintain it, should it be approved. Maintanance would most importantly involve keeping the current events updated, but also choosing articles and pictures to feature, maintaining the list of articles/categories, etc. I think the best place to provide input is at User_talk:Kmf164/United_States_Government. Thanks. -Aude ( talk | contribs ) 18:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Senators
With the creation of the article on Alfred Iverson, Sr., WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/American politicians/Senators is now complete. This is due to the hard work of many; credit is due to Rayc and others for their efforts. Paul 04:22, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Hooray!!!! :) &mdash;GoldRingChip 12:58, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

United States Congressional Delegations by state

 * Categories for deletion/Log/2006 May 12
 * Category:United States Congressional Delegations by state

Earlier, folks mentioned splitting these into the existing Senate and Representative pages to avoid duplication. (option 2a). More recently, a couple of folks thought it was better to maintain 3 pages per state.

What's the current sentiment? I'd like to split, finding all references is hard and maintaining duplicate information is annoying. Now that things are shaping up, it seems a good time to do some well-considered re-organization based on experience.
 * --William Allen Simpson 10:58, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Continental and Confederation Congresses?
Hi there:

Just a question about the scope of this project. Is this project limited to the United States Congress under the Constitution, or does it extend to the Continental and Confederation Congresses? If the latter, does it also extend to the Stamp Act Congress?

If you would like my advice—I am not a member of this project—I would suggest starting a separate WikiProject Continental Congress and limit your scope to the Constitutional Congress; the Continental Congresses and the Constitutional Congress are very different bodies.

— DLJessup (talk) 17:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi there:


 * As best I can determine, the scope of this project only extends to the Constitutional Congress. Therefore, I will shortly remove the  markers from Talk:Continental Congress, Talk:First Continental Congress, Talk:Second Continental Congress, and Talk:Congress of the Confederation, which I believe were placed on these articles in error.  If you disagree with this move, please respond.


 * — DLJessup (talk) 13:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Two questions,
One. Do we need USCongressTerms AND USCongresses? They seems to be about analogs, however one contains links to other lists, but is arrainged in vertical rows, which is ALOT harder to read (IMAO).

Second, Image:Us senate seal.png is (In the image gallery), listed as the Seal of the Senate... so what's Image:Senate cap.PNG? Thanx 68.39.174.238 17:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Nominate articles for Portal:United States
I've worked for the past month to update Portal:United States and keep it better maintained. Though, I think the portal would be even better with broader participation. One way to do that is instead of choosing the "selected article" myself each week, if others would nominate articles and help make decisions. (same goes for pictures, though these are stocked up through July 29) Articles about U.S. Congress and politics are more than welcome on the portal, as it's intended to cover all topics relating to the United States. If you would like to nominate or weigh in on what should be featured, please visit the portal. Thanks. -Aude ( talk contribs ) 21:35, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Important Note
There is a rather serious problem with some of the articles on former members of Congress. Many of them are known by several different names. Various pages which mention congressmen link to different names. For example, there is a person's first, middle and last name, e.g. James Christopher Healey, a person's first and last name with middle initial, e.g. James C. Healey and a person's first and last anme only, e.g. James Healey. It is vital that when you create an article on someone you check their other possible names to see if anything links there. There are possibly hundreds of pages which need to be redirected to articles, because people may find them and think there is no article on that person when there actually is, under a different name. I have been working on this for a week or so, but I would appreciate any help and suggestions on how to make this go faster. I have been going through the categories of members of the House and Senate from random states. I hope I am making this clear. Should ther be a note about this on the project page? Please respond. Thanks. Academic Challenger 07:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Style guide
Would there be any use for a style guide for articles on members of Congress? If so then I would be interested in putting one together...there seem to be many issues specific to these articles, for example incorporating Bioguide info. Getting a list of accepted conventions together might be a good start - I'd appreciate feedback. Thanks, Paul 05:17, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest two style guides, one for Senators, the others for Representatives. One reason is that Senate elections/races have their own articles (33 or 34 every two years), while House races (435 every two years) do not not.
 * Another issue to consider is that during even-numbered years there are election races, which deserve space; in odd-numbered years, there is very little reason (at least for the vast majority of Representatives) to devote any space to this. And it also makes sense to shrink the number of words for a given race once it is over (ideally, keeping most or all links in the article).  So a "style guide" would, ideally, account for where in the election cycle the Senator/Representative is.
 * And then, for particulars: there have been discussions in several articles on Representatives about how much or little space to give to challengers, particularly before a primary:  list all of the opposing party candidates, with links to their candidate websites (at one extreme), or not even mention by name the person who won the opposing major party primary (at the other extreme)?  [I personally favor the inclusion of just one opponent's name, particularly after the primary, wikified, even if there is no corresponding wiki article at the moment -- and nothing more.] John Broughton 13:17, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I wrote a draft manual; take a look and let me know what you think - User:PaulHanson/Style guide Paul 18:10, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


 * There isn't anything about elections/races. Would you mind if I did a first draft/edit - adding a section on that, to the manual?  John Broughton 18:31, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

There's lots missing from the manual. Add it and provide a summary of your changes. We'll have an official guide in no time. Paul 23:09, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, done. I hope that the first cut at the section is useful, at least to initiate productive discussion.  John Broughton 13:23, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

looking into mapping
I've been looking into building maps for House election results: both mapping the absolute seat balances by state and the net changes in party seats by state. While the ideal would be to map district by district, I don't know if/where maps of pre-modern districts are freely available in electronic format and the work of building the district boundaries by hand for every few years seems daunting. So I was thinking of just doing the proportions by state.

I have some samples: (absolute seats – coded by percent) Image:Us house by state 1980.PNG Image:Us house by state 1958.PNG (net change – coded by net seats rather than net percent, although there are arguments for going both ways) Image:Us house by state 1958 changes.PNG Image:Us house by state 1980 changes.PNG

Does anyone have any opinions on: the usefulness/uselessness of the idea, the format, whatever? If people don't have strongly negative opinions I would build more and start putting them into the United States House election articles and XXth Congress articles as appropriate.

Willhsmit 04:43, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Try to categorize them: [[:Category:Maps of United States House of Representatives|YEAR]] —GoldRingChip 12:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

None of those links work for me, Willhsmit. I've got a map, too. Here ->. I am also wondering the best place to put it. JoshNarins 02:10, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Congressional Articles for Improvement Drive
Hi, the articles for improvement drive seems to be all but dead and I was wondering if anyone was willing in taking it up again with perhaps new rules (maybe a change in time limit and number of subjects) TonyJoe 20:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I advanced the project using the same nomination criteria as before. I have stretched the time period to one month given the recent performace of the project.  If you have suggestions on improvements to the project please be bold!--G1076 17:42, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I just rewrote the Capitol Visitors Center article. If someone could look at it and make changes (while I had a lot of information for it, I'm not very good at writing articles). eric 22:33, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Bricker Amendment
For some time I have been working on revisions to the Bricker Amendment article. I finally posted it and have a PR at Peer review/Bricker Amendment/archive1. I'd welcome comments. I know all those references may seem extravagant, but I'm hoping to get it as an FA and those voters want lots of footnotes. PedanticallySpeaking 16:22, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

At-large Elections
Have there been any guidelines set for how to deal with those House seats that are "at-large"? I am working on the Pennsylvania congressional delegations, and the current method for showing these seats on the congressional delegations table is misleading, and I am at a total loss as to how to deal with these situations using the succession boxes. I did see the Page for Ohio's At-large congressional district, but this seems to be a very confusing way to deal with the situation. Perhaps that's just beacuse the situation is confusing? And the succession boxes (for Stephen M. Young for example) seem to ignore the "at-large" status all together.Npeters22 12:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * As for the Congressional Delegations – check out United States Congressional Delegations from New Jersey on dealing with with at large seats. As to the succession boxes...maybe they are not appropriate for multiple member, at-large distrects?  Maybe a link to the congressional delegation page is more appropriate?--G1076 14:40, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I've corrected Stephen M. Young in the style that I've been employing for succession boxes. Also, see United States Congressional Delegations from Massachusetts for how I've handled at-large delegation listings. The situation is confusing.—GoldRingChip 16:10, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

congressman and senator infoboxes
I've been doing a lot of work recently with current and past Congressmen and Senators by adding or  where missing or where  is used instead. I just added one to Barry Goldwater's article, and I was faced with a quandry. Goldwater's tenure in the senate had a four year gap in the mid-60s, so he had two predecessors and two successors. I put his first predecessor and second successor in the infobox, but I wonder if there's a better way to do it. Any suggestions on how all the information could be displayed without requiring meddling with the template? – stubblyh ea d | T/c 20:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Campaigns Wikia
Hey everyone. I've seen some of the great work you all are doing here. I was wondering if anyone wanted to help out at the Campaigns Wikia, which is all about what you're doing. Drop me a line either here or there. Thanks! Jfing e  r s  88  00:10, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Nah, i'm cool, but thanks. Just H 04:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox for Districts
I've had a bash and I've improved the 7 Alabama Districts and the 1st Arkansas over a few weeks, and I think statistical information could be better expressed with an infobox, considering every district article is going to have a Nat Atlas picture of it as well. Im not good with the technical side - any suggestions for a standard info box for districts? Orchid Righteous 09:06, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm working on this now. This is now done. Check it out at Template:Infobox U.S. congressional district. Usage information is at Template talk:Infobox U.S. congressional district. The article Alabama's 1st congressional district now uses this infobox. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 17:41, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Daniel Webster
Hi. Currently Daniel Webster is up for Featured article status and I was hoping that some people from the project would be willing to come and review it here as it hasn't gotten a single vote either way. Thanks, TonyJoe 19:42, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Featured Status attained 8 September 2006. --G1076 20:25, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Which infobox to use?
What if a Congressman was also a Governor of a State? I'm thinking the governor one should take priority, since it's a state-wide race, and a congressional race is for representing just a portion of a state? Thoughts? --plange 02:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I would suggest that you use the Politician template. It allows you to include multiple offices for a politician. I would suggest that this is used for Congressman and Senators only in exceptional circumstances such as when they served as Governor or as President of the United States and that the office of Congressman and Senator always be included and I would suggest that you list his term as Governor first and then his term as Congressman second. I would not include any other State or federal offices in the Infobox but include them as part of the text. Edward Lalone 22:18, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I concur with Edwardlalone, although I generally dislike infoboxes.—GoldRingChip 00:22, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 00:26, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ariticle defeatured 8 October 2006--G1076 20:18, 8 October 2006 (UTC)