The LedgerPublic Record
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The LedgerPublic Record

The Books follow the dollar, The Floor follows Congress, The Gavel follows the Court, The Desk follows the presidency, and The Race follows federal elections. Pick a path, then drill in without mixing shelves.

Archives refreshed Aug 7, 2026

The Books

  • Overview
  • Rankings
  • Map
  • Historical
  • Awards
  • Composition

The Floor

  • Overview
  • Watchlist
  • Pipeline
  • Votes
  • Members

The Gavel

  • Overview
  • Docket
  • Opinions
  • Justices

The Desk

  • Overview
  • Presidencies
  • Actions

The Race

  • Overview
  • Map
  • Presidency
  • Senate
  • House

Guides

  • Overview
  • Students
  • Reporters
  • Tools

Reference

  • Home
  • Definitions
  • Methodology
  • Data integrity
  • Status
  • Data cache
  • Usage
  • Privacy
  • Contact
  • For AI agents

Free and open. No accounts. Privacy covers anonymous visit data only. Usage covers how to cite and reuse the archives. Contact uses a private form.

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Guides · Reporters

For reporters

The Ledger is a free public-record desk: archived releases already shaped into shelves you can read under deadline. Use it to find the right series, check whether the build is healthy, and point readers at the publisher.

StudentsReportersToolsAll guides

Before you publish

  1. Step 1

    Check freshness

    Open Status for the last archive refresh, then Integrity for whether critical checks still pass.

  2. Step 2

    Match shelf to story

    Money and states in Books, legislation in Floor, Court in Gavel, White House paper in Desk, federal elections in Race.

  3. Step 3

    Attribute upstream

    Cite The Ledger as the atlas, and the agency or court as the publisher. Link both when space allows.

Freshness and trust

  • Refresh status

    When Floor, Books, Race, and the civicAPI registry last changed.

  • Data integrity

    Live pass, advisory, and fail checks on the shipped archives.

  • Methodology

    Counting rules and limits before you put a ranking in a lede.

Shelf map for story types

  • State balance pages

    Federal dollars in vs out by state, with ranks and politics context.

  • Floor votes

    Roll calls and member records for major watched legislation.

  • Gavel docket

    Merits cases, opinions, and justice-level votes from CourtListener archives.

  • Desk actions

    Curated executive orders, proclamations, and memoranda.

  • Race archive

    Certified-style FEC / MEDSL popular-vote and finance shelves.

  • Race live map

    Unofficial civicAPI tallies. Label them as unofficial in copy.

Copy habits that help

  • Say which fiscal year or election cycle you are using. Do not blend them in one sentence without saying so.
  • If Integrity shows an advisory or fail, put that uncertainty in the piece or wait for a clean build.
  • For the live map, write “unofficial tallies” (or similar) and keep FEC archive totals for historical context.
  • Prefer downloading product JSON from the data cache when you need a chart pipeline, not brittle HTML scrapes.

Support pages

  • Data cache

    Grab product JSON or source packs for charts without scraping the UI.

  • Definitions

    Decode Treasury, CBO, and agency shorthand in plain language.

  • Usage guidelines

    Reuse rules and how we expect attribution to work.

This is not a newsroom CMS or a wire service. Live Race tallies are unofficial overlays. For certified results, follow the origin link.