To support scholars here at the George Washington University, the SFM team proactively builds collections that match the research strengths of the institution. Being located mere blocks from the White House, one of GW’s research strengths is politics and government. We have a number of related collections, but I wanted to share our latest: 115th U.S. Congress.
I tracked down the twitter handles of most representatives and all senators. If you’d like to create your own collection of congressional tweets, we’ve provided the list here:
The bulk of these Twitter handles were found on websites for each representative and senator, as listed on the Senate and House directories.
A few members of Congress did not have a handle listed on their website. In those cases, a verified Twitter account was found. If there were multiple Twitter accounts, the one said to be operated by the member’s office was given priority, followed by those operated by the member, followed by a campaign account. If the account was not listed on the congressional website and not verified, it was not collected.
There were three senators who were found verified rather than listed on their websites:
- Bill Cassidy, R-LA
- John Cornyn, R-TX
- Kamala Harris, D-CA
There were eight representatives who were found verified rather than listed on their websites:
- James Comer, R-KY-01
- Dana Rohrbacher, R-CA-48
- Steve King, R-IA-04
- Roger Marshall, R-KS-01
- Brett Guthrie, R-KY-02
- Justin Amash, R-MI-03
- Billy Long, R-MO-07
- Earl Blumenauer, D-OR-03
There were four representatives for whom no account was listed and no account was found verified; these are the only four members of congress who have no tweets included in this collection.
- Collin Peterson, D-MN-07
- Lacy Clay, D-MO-01
- Madeline Bordallo, Guam delegate
- Gregorio Sablan, Northern Mariana Islands delegate
There are also four seats in the House of Representatives that are vacant at the time of this post, pending special elections (dates in parentheses):
- Georgia, 6th district (June 20th)
- Montana, At Large (May 25th)
- South Carolina, 5th district (June 20th)
- California, 34th district (June 6th)
Notably, many members of congress have additional Twitter handles that are not posted on the website, such as an account that is controlled directly by the member rather than by the member’s staff, or accounts that are run by the member’s campaign.
If you find any corrections or have any thoughts on this collection, contact or tweet us.