VA Legislature Datasette

Purpose

To easily open source the raw data provided by the Virginia Legislative Information System.

• LIS Data-files
• LIS Data-files Instructions

Sourcing raw data

Use the following URL: https://lis.blob.core.windows.net/lisfiles/, followed by the Session Year, Session Type, followed by the name of the CSV file you wish to automatically download.

For example, if you wish to automatically download the Bills.CSV file for the 2025 Regular Session, use the link https://lis.blob.core.windows.net/lisfiles/20251/BILLS.CSV. In this example, 2025 represents the Session Year, 1 represents the Regular Session, and BILLS.CSV represents the name of the file. Use 2 for a Special Session, and use 3 for a second Special Session.

Local Developer Install

python -m pip install -e . '[dev]'

To run the test kit

pytest tests.py

Usage

To build the SQLite database after installing the project use the CLI command

va-lis

This will build the SQLite database!

Then to run the app locally

datasette lis.db -o