Research Guides @ Fordham: Journalism: Government &amp; Legal Sources

Federal Government Sources

govinfo.gov
Provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.
Congress.gov
Official website providing information about bills, schedules, research reports, biographies, historical information, and more.
Popular Name Tool
List with popular names of laws in the U.S. Code with citations and links.
SupremeCourt.gov
Official website offering opinions, oral arguments, case documents, biographies of Supreme Court Justices, and more. This website will carry decisions the day they are released.
Oyez
Multimedia archive with Supreme Court case summaries, transcript-synchronized and searchable audio when available, illustrated decision information, full-text opinions, and biographies of every justice throughout the Court’s history.

New York State Documents
Guidance from the New York State Library about accessing various state documents.
NY State Government
Provides links to assembly, senate, courts, and more.
NY State Legislature
Searchable database of laws, bills, and more.

FindLaw This link opens in a new window
Access to New York consolidated and unconsolidated laws, court acts and rules.

New York City Council
Official website of the New York City Council. Includes press releases, video archives, data, budgetary information, and more.
Office of the Mayor of the City of New York
Offers news, press releases, transcripts of speeches, statements, executive orders, and more.
NYC Government Publications Portal (GPP)
A searchable online repository of New York City's digitized government publications.

GovTrack.us
Publishes the status of federal legislation, information about representatives and senators, voting records, and original research on legislation.
BillTrack50
Offers free Citizen accounts to search for legislators and unlimited bills in the current session.

Federal Election Commission
Official source for campaign finances and legal information.
OpenSecrets.org
Tracks money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy.

USA Spending
Official source for spending data by the U.S. Government.
FRED
Provides free U.S. and international economic data, graphs and other data-related tools.
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Publishes authoritative data about the nation's economy.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Publishes authoritative data on labor in the U.S. Find the Occupational Outlook Handbook under the "Publications" drop down menu.

FBI: Uniform Crime Reporting
Data collections, tools, and reports on crime collected by the FBI. Includes includes data from more than 18,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies.
NYPD CompStat 2.0
NYPD crime statistics as recorded in the CompStat book running Monday through Sunday. All figures reflect statistics from the end of the most recent CompStat period. Data is subject to change as complaints are investigated.

Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) This link opens in a new window
Includes U.S. and state legal cases including as well as Supreme Court decisions back to 1790.
A user will be able to download 250 titles/headlines from the search results list at a time. Checking the box next to each search result allows users to download the full document. The system will allow downloading of 100 documents or 1,000 pages at a time. There are no overall total download limits.
HeinOnline Law Library This link opens in a new window
Contains a wide range of legal resources including: Supreme Court cases, law-related periodicals and books, codes, opinions and more.
LegalTrac (Gale OneFile) This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing and selective full-text for all major law reviews, law journals, specialty law and bar association journals and legal newspapers. Also covers federal and state cases, laws and regulations, legal practice and taxation, as well as British Commonwealth, European Union, and international law.

Data.gov
Provides open data from U.S. government agencies along with data tools and resources to conduct research, develop web and mobile applications, and design data visualizations.
NYC Open Data
Provides free access to public datasets published by New York City agencies and other partners covering city government, education, environment, health, and business.

Journalists' Toolbox
Includes lists of free resources to research government and/or public records from the Society of Professional Journalists.