Legis-graph - Exploring US Congress as A Graph

Exercises


datamodel

The following slides contain some questions to help guide us as we explore the dataset. Keep in mind the data model to the right as you write the graph patterns necessary to answer the questions.

Consult the Cypher Reference Card to help find the syntax / commands for constructing your query.

The typical format for writing each query will be:

MATCH ...some graph pattern...
RETURN ...

Get familiar with the data…​ basic lookups


datamodel

Looking for exact matches

MATCH (l:Legislator)
WHERE l.lastName = 'McCain'
RETURN l

or a more compact version:

MATCH (x:Legislator {lastName : 'McCain'})
RETURN x

  • Try to find senator Barrasso

  • Now try to find a legislator called 'Johnson', filters on non unique properties may return multiple results!

  • Identify unique identifiers for the entities in your graph

Looking for approximate matches

Legislator name starting with…​

MATCH (x:Legislator)
WHERE x.lastName STARTS WITH "Ca"
RETURN x

you have other approximate match functions: 'ENDS WITH', 'CONTAINS', '~'. Check the Cypher refcard for more. Filters can be combined logically with AND & OR

MATCH (x:Legislator)
WHERE x.lastName CONTAINS 'bi' AND x.birthday > "1970"
RETURN x

  • Find bills mentioning Cuba in its title

  • Find legislators older than 65 and with name ending in 'son'

Get familiar with the data…​ let’s start building patterns


datamodel

You can build a pattern incrementally by adding new queries

MATCH (l:Legislator)
WHERE l.lastName = 'McCain'
MATCH (b:Bill)-[sb:SPONSORED_BY]->(l)
WHERE b.officialTitle CONTAINS 'Affordable Care'
RETURN b

or compact all patterns first patterns first:

MATCH (b:Bill)-[sb:SPONSORED_BY]->(l:Legislator)
WHERE l.lastName = 'McCain'
  AND b.officialTitle CONTAINS 'Affordable Care'
RETURN b

  • Find the bills referred to the House Committee on Agriculture that mention livestock in their title

Explore by State


datamodel

  • Who are the legislators who represent NY?

MATCH ...graph pattern for Legislator nodes  connected to State nodes...
WHERE ...filter for NY State...
RETURN ....

  • What political parties do they represent?

  • How many NY Democrats are serving in the House?

Committees


datamodel

  • For the legislators representing NY, what are the Committees on which they serve?

  • What are the subjects of the bills referred to these committees?

Bill Sponsorship


datamodel

  • Who sponsors the most bills?

Note that when we return values along with an aggregation such as COUNT Cypher treats the statement as an implicit GROUP BY

  • Who sponsors the most bills for the subject "News media and reporting"?

  • Which legislators frequently sponsor bills together?

  • Choose a specific legislator and find the subjects of the bills this legislator sponsors. What are the most common subjects.

  • (Bonus) Only include bills where this legislator was the main sponsor.