Openstates

Ruby gem to interact with the Sunlight Labs OpenStates API.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'openstates'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install openstates

You will need to register for an API key with Sunlight Labs.

If you intend to use this gem in a rails project, you should add the following in config/initializers/openstates.rb

OpenStates.configure do |config|
  config.api_key ='yourkeyhere'
  config.logger = Rails.logger
end

If your project is not rails based, you just need to include the above configuration somewhere in your ruby environment with single change.

OpenStates.configure do |config|
  config.api_key ='yourkeyhere'
  config.logger = ::Logger.new(STDOUT)
  config.logger.level = ::Logger::DEBUG
end

You can search for bills using the where class method on OpenStates::Bill.

bills = OpenStates::Bill.where(state: 'tx', q: 'taxi')

You can also search for a specific bill by it's bill_id.

bill = OpenStates::Bill.find("12345")

Or by its OpenStates id.

bill = OpenStates::Bill.find_by_openstates_id("KS00012345")

And lastly, you can get bill details by using the bill_details class method on OpenStates::Bill.

bill = OpenStates::Bill.bill_details('fl', '2013', '12345')

You can find a list of all query parameters for Bills here.

You can search for committees using the where class method on OpenStates::Committee.

committees = OpenStates::Committee.where(state: 'ny')

You can also search for a specific committee by it's id.

committee = OpenStates::Committee.find("NYC000099")

You can find a list of all query parameters for Committees here

You can search for districts using the where class method on OpenStates::District.

districts = OpenStates::District.where(state: 'nj')

You can also search for a specific district by it's boundary_id.

district = OpenStates::District.find('12345')

You can find a list of all query parameters for Districts here

You can search for events using the where class method on OpenStates::Event.

events = OpenStates::Event.where(state: 'ok')

You can also search for a specific event by it's event_id.

event = OpenStates::Event.find('1234567')

You can find a list of all query parameters for Events here

You can search for legislators using the where class method on OpenStates::Legislator.

legislators = OpenStates::Legislator.where(state: 'ga')

You can also search for a specific legislator by their leg_id.

legislator = OpenStates::Legislator.find('12345')

And lastly, you can search for legislators by geolocation details.

legislators = OpenStates::Legislator.by_location(45.13, -85.10)

You can find a list of all query parameters for Legislators here