Key links

• Virginia General Assembly's Web site - Starting point for looking up or tracking legislation and getting information about the House of Delegates, the Senate and their members.

  • House Appropriations Committee - Arguably the most powerful legislative committee.

  • State budget info - "posted as it becomes available"

• Legislative Information System - Look up bills, check on meetings, read minutes.

• Commonwealth of Virginia - Government Information Portal

  • List of state-government Web sites

• Lobbyist Registration Database - Secretary of the Commonwealth

Bills and their status

• Legislative Information System - Look up bills individually or by category.

• How to create LIS reports and comma-delimited files - LIS will send you e-mails with reports or data that you can analyze. It's free, but you must register with the Legislative Tracking Service.

• LIS FTP site - Download a updated file of all bills and resolutions, with their status. You'll need a user ID.

Calendars

• Legislative Information System: committee meetings, press conferences, other events

• Associated Press - Only subscribers can log in. Look for "VA Daybook" under Advisories.

• Calendar of fund-raisers and other political events - From David Bailey Associates, a lobbying firm.

• Commonwealth Calendar - List of government meetings, events and activities.

Agencies working for the Legislature

• Division of Legislative Services - Session highlights, session summary, interim committee reports, issue briefs.

• Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee - The General Assembly's investigative arm.

• Auditor of Public Accounts - Like JLARC, but deals with financial issues, both state and local.

  • Commonwealth Data Point - "A comprehensive database of the Commonwealth's financial transactions and demographics."

• Virginia Register of Regulations - Rulings, hearings and other action by state regulatory agencies; downloadable and searchable.

Other helpful Virginia-government sites

• Virginia.gov - Official Commonwealth of Virginia Home Page; portal operated by VIPNet.

• State Employee Look-Up

Press releases from Virginia officials and agencies

• Gov. Tim Kaine

• Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling

• Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell

• Virginia Department of Taxation

• Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control

• Virginia Lottery

• Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles

• Links to various state-agency press offices - Doesn't include all agencies.

Nonpartisan sites

• VAPolitics.net - Authoritative information about the General Assembly, including economic disclosure filings

• Virginia Coalition for Open Government - Legislative report.

• Virginia Public Access Project - Campaign finance data online.

• Virginia General Assembly map - Clickable map listing population and legislators representing each locality (with links to the legislators' Web pages); from David Bailey Associates. For more demographics, use the U.S. Census Bureau's American FactFinder tool.

• Virginia Press Association - Legislative report.

Political-party sites

• Republican Party of Virginia

• Democratic Party of Virginia

• Green Party of Virginia

• Libertarian Party of Virginia

Higher ed

• Virginia Commonwealth University's Division of External Relations - Public relations, community relations, lobbying staff. Monitors the General Assembly.

• State Council for Higher Education of Virginia - Also watches the Legislature.

• The 21st Century Virginia Coalition (Virginia-21) - Lobby for young adults.

Other states

• Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors - Good place to network with other statehouse reporters and get advice.

• Campaign Finance Information Center - Search or download contributions data for legislators in various states. Archive of stories and resource regarding money in politics. Created by Investigative Reporters & Editors Inc.

• Center for Public Integrity - National and state-level data, including PDFs of "Statements of Economic Interest" (conflict-of-interest forms) filed by Virginia legislators.

• Council of State Governments

• Institute on Money in State Politics - Search state-level contributions nationwide.

• National Council of State Legislatures

  • "The Thicket" - A blog maintained by the NCSL and State Legislatures magazine.

• National Governors' Association

• stateline.org - "News on state policy innovations"

• Google Government Search - includes state-government pages.

Federal resources

• THOMAS - Information about federal legislation.

• Library of Congress

• Government Printing Offic

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