Regardless of your political views, these seven websites can help you track the actions of your elected officials.  Most of the sites included in this article can be used to perform wide ranging research and others can monitor the legislation introduced and votes cast by Members of Congress.  Two of the sites also track in great detail the political contributions made to elected officials.

Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker is a joint project of ProPublica and the Sunlight Foundation which digitizes information that representatives of foreign governments, political parties and government-controlled entities must disclose to the U.S. Justice Department when they seek to influence U.S. policy.

Information may be searched by member of Congress contacted, country, client, lobbying firm and contact issues as reported by lobbyists.

Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker is a free website and requires no registration.

GovTrack is an independent, non-partisan, non-commercial, and open-source website launched in September 2004 which is also a hub of legislative data that is used to power other websites, such as OpenCongress and MAPLight.  It is an independent tool to help in public research and track activities in the U.S. Congress.

GovTrack provides information on the status of U.S. federal legislation, voting records in the Senate and House of Representatives, Members of Congress, district maps, congressional committees and the Congressional Record.

In addition to being a research tool, GovTrack is also a tracking service which provides personalized feeds, email updates and widgets for embedding its information on other websites.

GovTrack is a free website and requires no registration for website searches.  Registering for the site lets you save your tracker settings and gives you the option for receiving email updates for congressional activity that matches the trackers you choose.

Legistalker was created by Forum One Communications as an entry for the Apps for America competition. Their database is updated every 20 seconds with information from hundreds of news sources.  Information is separated into categories for news, Twitter updates and YouTube videos.  All categories can be viewed together by selecting All Streams, which is the default view.

Members of Congress can be found by zip code, state or Congress Member’s name.  When viewing results for a Senator or Representative, the votes tab shows all bills introduced by the member as well as votes cast.  There is also a watch list feature for ease in tracking multiple members of Congress.

Legistalker is a free website and requires no registration.

MAPLight illuminates the connection between campaign donations and legislative votes to help citizens hold their legislators accountable.

MAPLight information combines three data sets:

• Bill texts and legislative voting records
• Supporting and opposing interests for each bill
• Campaign contribution data from the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in State Politics

Combining this data makes visible key information that could never before be determined easily. For example:

• Contributions given by interests supporting and opposing each bill
• Average donations given to legislators voting Yes and No on each bill
• Timeline of contributions and votes for each bill, graphically identifying when legislators received large donations before or after their vote.

MAPLight is a free website and requires no registration.  Those who choose to register will receive updates via email.

OpenCongress brings together official government data with news and blog coverage, social networking, public participation tools, and more to give you the real story behind what’s happening in Congress.  It is a free, open-source, not-for-profit, and non-partisan web resource with a mission to make Congress more transparent and to encourage civic engagement. OpenCongress is a joint project of two non-profit organizations, the Participatory Politics Foundation and the Sunlight Foundation.

OpenCongress brings data together from various sources.

• Official government data from the Library of Congress’ website THOMAS, via the community project GovTrack.
• News articles about bills and Members of Congress from Google News and the news service Daylife.
• Blog posts about bills and Members of Congress from Google Blog Search and the blog service Technorati.
• Campaign contribution data for every Member of Congress from OpenSecrets, the website of the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, and contribution analysis of prominent bills from the similarly non-partisan money-in-politics project MAPLight.
• Videos about Congress from Metavid, the open video archive, and the YouTube Senate Hub and House Hub.

OpenCongress is a free website and requires no registration.  Those who choose to register will receive updates via email.

OpenSecrets tracks the influence of money on U.S. politics and how that money affects policy and citizens’ lives. The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) launched the website following the 1996 elections.

OpenSecrets is well organized with its main categories including Politicians & Elections, Influence & Lobbying and News & Analysis.  Each of its main categories includes numerous subcategories with a wealth of information.  The scope of detailed financial data is truly impressive.

OpenSecrets is a free website and requires no registration.

THOMAS is a website operated by The Library of Congress that was launched in January of 1995 at the inception of the 104th Congress. The leadership of the 104th Congress directed the Library of Congress to make federal legislative information freely available to the public. Since that time THOMAS has expanded the scope of its offerings to include the features and content listed below.

• Bills, Resolutions
• Activity in Congress
• Congressional Record
• Schedules, Calendars
• Committee Information
• Presidential Nominations
• Treaties
• Government Resources
• For Teachers

THOMAS is a free website and requires no registration

Hopefully, you will find these websites useful in keeping tabs on your elected officials.  Be sure to mention any other favorites you may have in the comments.