Corrected ICPSR Member ID Numbers Congresses 1 - 107
13 July 2004
During the many years that we have been analyzing the history of
congressional roll call voting,
Howard Rosenthal and I have found many errors in the original ICPSR
data files (especially during the early Congresses). The files below
contain the corrections made by ourselves as
well as many other scholars who have shared their data with us.
We welcome contributions to and questions about these files (please
send E-Mail to Keith Poole
kpoole@ucsd.edu
).
The format of the files is:
1. Congress Number
2. ICPSR ID Number (P&R 1980s): 5 digit code used in our 1980s D-NOMINATE work
3. ICPSR ID Number (Current): corrected ID numbers
4. ICPSR ID Number (distributed by ICPSR): Current ICPSR ID Number
5. State Code: 2 digit ICPSR State Code.
6. Congressional District Number (0 if Senate)
7. State Name
8. Party Code: 100 = Dem., 200 = Repub. (See Party3.dat)
9. Name (short and long form)
The most common error we found with the ID number was the assigning of the
same number to two different individuals with the same last name (usually
a Father and Son). We also found a number of cases where the same ID number was
used for two completely different individuals -- one who served in the House
and one who served in the Senate. We also found a number of cases where the
same individual received two ID numbers. Since the 1980s the ICPSR has corrected
a number of these errors. The first ID field shows the number we used in our
original work, the second number shows the number we currently use in our database,
and the third number is the one currently used by the ICPSR.
An "*" before the second number indicates a correction to our original database. This
number will appear in all future DW-NOMINATE and W-NOMINATE scores. Note that sometimes
this field will not match the current ICPSR ID number (e.g., Sibley of PA in the
53rd House). If a member switched parties during his career, we assigned him a second
ID number. For example, Sibley switched from Democrat to Republican in the 57th
House. We assigned the ID number 98500 for his career as a Democrat and the ID 8500 (which
matches the current ICPSR ID number) for his career as a Republican.
An "*" before the third number indicates that we do not use the number assigned by the
ICPSR. This is fairly common for the 100th Congress onwards. The ICPSR did not
compile the congressional roll call data for a number of years so I created the roll call data
for Houses/Senates 102 to 107 and
I assigned the ID numbers. See the 106th House Page for
an explanation of how this was done.
The state, congressional district, and party codes in
our data base correspond to Ken
Martis's The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United
States Congress. Howard and I consider Martis's Atlas to be the
best source of information about party affiliation of members of
Congress so that our data base can be considered to be very "clean".
Congresses 1 - 107 have been extensively checked by ourselves and
other scholars. Party3.dat contains the dictionary for the party
codes. Please cite Ken Martis's atlas as the original source if you
use these codes in any way.
The files below are all text files sorted by Congress, State, Congressional
District Number (House only), and seat occupant.
Senates 1 to 107 Member ID Numbers (8782 Records, 769K bytes)
Houses 1 to 107 Member ID Numbers (35,565 Records, 2.8M bytes)