Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress/Archives/2017

CongLinks template in Bioguide has lots of unknown parameters
I was editing Senator Barbara Mikulski's article and noticed there were a lot of unknown parameters in the CongLinks template in her External links section, so I came to this project looking for an update on the preferred field names and found the same unknown parameters used in the example this project gives in the Bioguide. The errors don't show up on the published page, but when the CongLinks subsection is open in editor, the preview looks like this:

There are only 4 fields listed on the CongLinks template page:. I suppose those extra fields probably worked a while ago, but were removed at some point, so should I delete the red ones from the Bioguide and whenever I come across the same issue in the future or is there a quick fix to restore those links? Could a bot do it? I don't know how templates (or bots) get created/updated, so I figured I'd start by pointing it out here and hopefully someone will see this that knows how to fix it or can tell me if there's a more appropriate place to bring this up. Thanks! —PermStrump ( talk )  04:49, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

North Carolina
Hi. I want to update the data at North Carolina's 1st Congressional District, and came across this stat pack. For demographic purposes, how should I denote the proportion of white, black, Hispanic voters, etc? Ditto for the 12 other districts that need an update.

Also, where can I find a GIS mapping software that allows the user to split voting wards? Devoted Political Nerd (talk) 01:19, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Employee Free Choice Act
I added a couple of new sentences to this article (with refs, of course), but in doing so I realized that the article is primarily about the 2009 incarnation of the bill. In fact, there have been multiple attempts to put this bill through Congress, with 10 separate entries on congress.gov. I imagine that it is acceptable to include them all under the umbrella of the term Employee Free Choice Act, but I don't know if that's standard procedure. How do we keep the various iterations straight? The lead section states the numbers of the two bills from 2009 (House and Senate). Should this be modified to include the other bills introduced under this name? Or do they each need separate articles? -- GentlemanGhost  (converse)  21:57, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * If I am understanding this correctly, this is a collection of similar (and similarly named) bills that never became law. If so, I don't think they would each need their own article.  WP:NOPAGE has some discussion on when to have a seperate article, and I would think under "Do related topics provide needed context?" they would not need there own article. meamemg (talk) 18:57, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Great! Thank you for the info. -- GentlemanGhost  (converse)  22:30, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of List of members of the United States House of Representatives who died in the 2000s for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of members of the United States House of Representatives who died in the 2000s is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/List of members of the United States House of Representatives who died in the 2000s until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Star Garnet (talk) 01:25, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Notice about adminship to participants at this project
Many participants here create a lot of content, may have to evaluate whether or not a subject is notable, decide if content complies with BLP policy, and much more. Well, these are just some of the skills considered at Requests for adminship.

So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:


 * Requests for adminship/Optional RfA candidate poll

You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:40, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Popular pages report
We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject or task force is signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, will post at /Popular pages with a list of the most-viewed pages over the previous month that are within the scope of. We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:
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Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:16, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Discussion concerning Speaker of the House Infobox
I have started a discussion about the infobox of the Speaker of the House. it is located Talk:Paul Ryan. ~ GB fan 19:51, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Congressional Institute
Hello! I'm looking for editors who might be interested in helping me update the Congressional Institute article. I have drafted an updated and expanded article on behalf of the Institute as part of my work with Beutler Ink. Editors can review that draft here and a few explanatory notes about it in my Talk page note here. Due to my COI I won't edit the article directly, so I'm looking for neutral editors to review this draft. Thanks! Heatherer (talk) 20:54, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * ✅ This edit request has been answered. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 02:35, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Help with Congressional Institute article
Hi there! I'm reaching out at this WikiProject to follow up on my former colleague's note above, to see if any members would be interested to help update the article for the Congressional Institute. The current article is much too detailed, has inline external links, and content that is promotional and not properly sourced. The new draft proposed trims down the content, focuses on encyclopedic detail and is thoroughly sourced. If you're interested to take a look, the edit request on the Talk page here provides more details. In full disclosure: I have a financial COI as I'm here on behalf the Institute as part of my work with Beutler Ink and I won't edit the article directly; I'm hoping to find uninvolved editors to review the draft. Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 19:25, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ This edit request has been answered. Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk &middot; COI) 02:36, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Democratic–Republican Party
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Democratic–Republican Party. —GoldRingChip 13:04, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation links on pages tagged by this wikiproject
Wikipedia has many thousands of wikilinks which point to disambiguation pages. It would be useful to readers if these links directed them to the specific pages of interest, rather than making them search through a list. Members of WikiProject Disambiguation have been working on this and the total number is now below 20,000 for the first time. Some of these links require specialist knowledge of the topics concerned and therefore it would be great if you could help in your area of expertise.

A list of the relevant links on pages which fall within the remit of this wikiproject can be found at http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/cgi-bin/topic_points.py?banner=WikiProject_U.S._Congress

Please take a few minutes to help make these more useful to our readers.&mdash; Rod talk 19:46, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

List of senators style/layout
This got brought to my attention with the peer review of List of United States Senators from Ohio, but judging by other states articles this is broadly applicable. In short: the layout of these pages, creating side-by-side lists via senator classes, is pretty terrible from a usability and readability standpoint (on a PC, it's just annoying; on mobile, it becomes actively harmful). These really should be interleaved, especially as I highly doubt the class of senator is the most important part of the topic. I can't tell exactly where this style was chosen, but I'd strongly recommend coming up with another one. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 18:54, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
 * They style wasn't formally chosen, it evolved over time and I moved to make them consistent among the 50 articles. I would welcome, however, a redesign.  Can you draft something at, maybe, Draft:List of United States Senators from Ohio, and we can comment, edit, tweak, etc.?—GoldRingChip 13:56, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Official beginning & end of terms for members of Congress
This is a broad topic, so let's try to cover it concisely. There are several issues.

Before the 20th Amendment
Before the 20th Amendment, there was no constitutional date of their terms, other than the length. As the 1st Congress began on March 4, 1789, all terms are either two years or six years from that date. Terms therefore began on March 4th at midnight (beginning of the day) and the previous term ended at that same time, but it's usually called March 3rd midnight (end of the day). Hence all the so-called "Midnight" actions like legislation and appointments.

There has been some (mostly settled) debate on Wikipedia about whether March 4 or March 3 is what we should call the end date, even though there's no real dispute about the moment the term ended (midnight on the transition between March 3 & 4), just what to call it. External sources, while required by WP rules, have been wildly inconsistent.

This all changed when the 20th Amendment, Section 1 set a constitutional date & time of January 3 at noon: "Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin."

Appointed Senators
The term of an appointed Senator begins when she/he is appointed and qualified.

First, let's cover the qualifications. To be a Senator, one must be at last 30 years old, a citizen for 9 years, and a resident of their elective state. (see Article One of the United States Constitution.). That's not so tricky. The tricky part is when that appointee has a conflicting job. Often appointees are already elected or appointed officials in local, state, or federal government.

What if an appointee has a conflicting position?
It's not unusual for a Member of the U.S. House to be appointed to the U.S. Senate. He/she must resign from the House before the Senate term begins as he/she cannot hold both offices simultaneously.. Is my assumption correct?

But what about state officers? Luther Strange, the Attorney General of Alabama, was appointed to replace Jeff Sessions in the U.S. Senate in February 2017. Did Strange have to resign his state office before his term could begin?

In most, if not all, cases, such people do resign before taking the oath and acting in the new job.

Furthermore, in some cases, a newly-elected or appointed Senator has chosen to delay "taking their seat" so they could continue in their state position a little longer. See, e.g., Huey Long. Does that mean that his Senate term did not begin, or that he simultaneously held both jobs even though he wasn't acting like it?

Oath vs. election vs. appointment
Does the oath of office matter or the appointment/election or the qualification?

Conflicting statutes
Some statutes conflict with others. For example, some say "oath" some say "election."