filibustr (version 0.3.0)

get_les: Get Legislative Effectiveness Scores data

Description

get_les() returns Legislative Effectiveness Scores data from the Center for Effective Lawmaking.

Usage

get_les(chamber, les_2 = FALSE, local_path = NULL)

Value

A tibble.

Arguments

chamber

Which chamber to get data for. Options are:

• "house", "h", "hr": House data only.

• "senate", "s", "sen": Senate data only.

These options are case-insensitive. Any other argument results in an error.

Note: Unlike the Voteview functions, there is no "all" option. You must specify either House or Senate data, since there is no "default" option.

There are non-trivial differences between the House and Senate datasets, so take care when joining House and Senate data. Important differences include:

• Legislator names are formatted differently. The Senate data has first and last name columns, while the House data has a single thomas_name column.

• The year column refers to the first year of the Congress in the House data, but year refers to the preceding election year in the Senate data. Thus, the year for House members is one after that of senators in the same Congress.

les_2

Whether to use LES 2.0 (instead of Classic Legislative Effectiveness Scores). LES 2.0 credits lawmakers when language from their sponsored bills is included in other legislators' bills that become law. LES 2.0 is only available for the 117th Congress. Classic LES is available for the 93rd through 117th Congresses.

local_path

(Optional) A file path for reading from a local file. If no local_path is specified, will read data from the Center for Effective Lawmaking website.

Details

See the Center for Effective Lawmaking website for more information on their data.

The Legislative Effectiveness Score methodology was introduced in:

Volden, C., & Wiseman, A. E. (2014). Legislative effectiveness in the United States Congress: The lawmakers. Cambridge University Press. tools:::Rd_expr_doi("doi:10.1017/CBO9781139032360")

Examples

if (FALSE) { # interactive()
# Classic LES data (93rd-117th Congresses)
get_les("house", les_2 = FALSE)
get_les("senate", les_2 = FALSE)
}
# LES 2.0 (117th Congress)
get_les("house", les_2 = TRUE)
get_les("senate", les_2 = TRUE)