Vital Statistics on Congress

For more than three decades, Vital Statistics on Congress, a joint effort undertaken by Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Tom Mann of Brookings, in collaboration with Michael Malbin of the Campaign Finance Institute, has been a go-to reference guide for Congressional watchers for impartial data on Congress and its members.

Vital Statistics’ purpose has always been to collect useful data on our first branch of government – in the election and composition of its membership as well as its formal procedure, such as the use of the filibuster, informal norms, party structure and staff. This dataset also documents the increasing polarization of Congress and the demographics of those who serve in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives