OpenStates-CS

A .NET wrapper for the Sunlight Foundation Open States API (http://openstates.org/api).

Important Notes

This library is incomplete!

I created this wrapper for another project I'm working on. It does not currently implement all of the available methods in the Open States API. I'm implementing them as needed.

Inconsistent data

The Open States data comes from scraping the websites of various state legislatures. Scraping a website for data is very brittle so there will be mistakes and inconsistencies.

Basic Usage Examples

You will need an API key to work with the Open States API. One can be obtained from http://sunlightfoundation.com/api/.

using(var client = new OpenStatesClient("YourOpenStatesApiKey"))
{
	// You can search for legislators using various parameters. All parameters are optional.
	// This example searches for all Republican members of the Utah State Senate.
    var republicanSenators = client.LegislatorSearch(
		state: State.UT,
		chamber: Chamber.Upper,
		party: "Republican"
	);

	// Retrieve legislators who are serving districts containing the given coordinates. 
	var legislatorsByCoordinates = client.LegislatorsGeoLookup(41.082303, -111.996914);

	// Retrieve information on all Utah Senate districts.
	var senateDistricts = client.DistrictSearch(State.UT, Chamber.Upper);

	// Retrieve detailed geographical boundary information for the given district.
	var districtBoundary = client.DistrictBoundaryLookup("sldl/ut-22");
}

What's left to do

• Metadata methods
• Bill methods
• Legislator methods
• Committee methods - (thanks @pcopley)
• Event methods
• District methods

NuGet

This package is available on NuGet.

Install-Package OpenStates-CS