I got my absentee ballot in the mail Saturday. I've been looking around a bit though, looking for info on the people. One thing I don't see is a bipartisan voting record site that is easy to understand. Project vote smart, for example, was easy to understand, but they pick which bills they show the voting record for, which can taint the record they demonstrate by deliberately not selecting certain bills. I want a more comprehensive record, too.
Is there anywhere in particular you people look?
"Thomas (http://thomas.loc.gov/)", while a laborious site ... um ... at any rate, its FAQ reads: "THOMAS has the Congressional Record and full text of legislation available from 1989 (101st Congress) to the present. In addition, THOMAS has summaries (not full text) of legislation are available back to 1973 (93rd Congress)."
If you're handy with "advanced" search engines, have a whack at the Bill Summary & Status (http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d108query.html) search.
Ah! We may have struck gold. As I type, I'm also hopping around Google, and I've come across The Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives (http://clerk.house.gov/), which offers a page on Legislative Activities (http://clerk.house.gov/legisAct/votes.html), including Roll Call votes for the 101st through the current. It looks fairly easy to use. Counting clicks on a past session of Congress (e.g. the longer route):
• Home (http://clerk.house.gov/)
• Legislative Activities (http://clerk.house.gov/legisAct/votes.html)
• Roll Call of previous Congresses (http://clerk.house.gov/histHigh/Congressional_History/index.html)
• Choose 104th, 2nd session, and Submit (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/index.asp)
• Choose Roll Calls #300 - 399 (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/ROLL_300.asp)
• Choose Roll #316 (H.R. 3396 - Defense of Marriage Act (http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=1996&rollnumber=316)
The thing is that you need to know the approximate date of the vote, else you'll end up fishing through Rolls, which are divided up into blocks of 100.
There is one other thing you can do:
• Google (http://www.google.com/)
• Search u.s. house roll call hr 3396 (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=u.s.+house+roll+call+hr+3396&btnG=Search)
• The top link at present is Clerk of the Office of the U.S. House of Representatives (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/ROLL_300.asp), 104th Congress, Second Session, Roll Calls #300 - 399
The U.S. Senate is a bit easier (http://www.senate.gov/), actually. I'll skip the counting clicks through their site (anyone's welcome to try it).
If you know the bill number, search Google for common terms and the number: senate roll call hr 3396 (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=senate+roll+call+hr+3396&btnG=Search). If you know the name of the bill, it works as well: senate roll call defense of marriage act (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=senate+roll+call+defense+of+marriage+act&btnG=Search). Both searches offer up the U.S. Senate (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00280) web page for the roll call of that bill. (Incidentally, that's a wild roll call, for DoMA; Jeffords yea? Murray yea? Wellstone yea? Lieberman yea? At least the guy I voted for--Wyden of Oregon-- voted against it.)
But yeah, Google is the easiest way I know. The important term is roll call. It should be able to find fairly obscure bills, as well.
As to local legislatures, that's a case-by-case basis. It's a bit harder to do, but the same principles apply. My present state, Washington, has some rolls available (http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2003-04/House/2750-2774/2771_rollcall.txt), but I pay about as much attention to our legislature as the next guy, so in the end I have to start at the state legislature homepage (http://www1.leg.wa.gov/legislature) and work from there. Google helps, too. But accessibility depends on each state.
However, nobody is going to hand it to us as easily as we might imagine it should be. This being the United States, things just don't work that way. Do they anywhere?
(Note on Edit: I really need to stop writing these advisory responses in real-time. Sorry if the first part of the above is deceptively incoherent compared to the rest.)