Elected official names in State Legislative District layers

[DerekMStrout]

Hi Community,

I have included the State Legislative Districts - Upper Houses and State Legislative Districts - Lower Houses layers in some maps and apps for colleagues, and I'm curious about their lack of senator and representative names and their party affiliations. I imagine there is a simple explanation, but as I am not a policy or legislative expert, I haven't been able to find this discussed anywhere.

Thanks!

[ZenMasterZeke]

Probably because this data originates with the census bureau, and they don't track those variables. The districts usually stay the same for 10 years or more, but tracking who the representative is and what party they belong to isn't part of their mission. It could potentially change every couple years or so.

If you have a list of reps, you could join it to the district layer and get it that way.

[DerekMStrout]

Thanks, @ZenMasterZeke. I'm not familiar with Esri's process for these federal datasets, but with ~7,000 districts and varying election cycles and special elections, I can imagine it would be a challenge to enrich with that info and keep it current. More info from the National Conference of State Legislatures here.

[JimHerries]

We are revisiting our collection of boundaries in Living Atlas and I've made a note to look for an authoritative source for current occupants. Keeping up with the changes is likely a daily job for someone out there, and it's easy enough to do a daily update to our boundary layers if we can identify a reliable source or sources. 

[DerekMStrout]

Thanks, Jim! That would make life much easier on our end by eliminating the need to join tables, maintain static info, etc.