pvsR (version 0.1.1)

Committee.getCommitteeMembers: Get a list of members of a committee

Description

This function is a wrapper for the Committee.getCommitteeMembers() method of the PVS API Committee class which returns a list of members of a committee. The function sends a request with this method to the PVS API for all committee IDs given as a function input, extracts the XML values from the returned XML file(s) and returns them arranged in one data frame.

Usage

Committee.getCommitteeMembers(committeeId)

Arguments

committeeId

a character string or list of character strings with the committee ID(s) (see references for details)

Value

• A data frame with a row for each committee member and columns with variables describing the committee member. The returned data frame contains a row for each committee member and columns with the following variables describing the committee member: committeeMembers.committee.committeeId, committeeMembers.committee.parentId, committeeMembers.committee.name, committeeMembers.member*.candidateId, committeeMembers.member*.title, committeeMembers.member*.firstName, committeeMembers.member*.middleName, committeeMembers.member*.lastName, committeeMembers.member*.suffix, committeeMembers.member*.party, committeeMembers.member*.position.

References

http://api.votesmart.org/docs/Committee.html Use CandidateBio.getBio(), Committee.getCommitteesByTypeState() or Votes.getBill() to get committee ID(s).

Examples

# First, make sure your personal PVS API key is saved as character string in the pvs.key variable:
pvs.key <- "yourkey"
# get a list of members of certain committees
comember <- Committee.getCommitteeMembers(1)
comember