vt_legislation_bot

Test script to parse useful information from http://legislature.vermont.gov/bill/status

Information to scrap

List css selectors to grab html tag containing desired information

All interesting information contained inside of Selector:"div #main-content"

Bill Number

Selector:h1

Bill Year

Parse from URL?

Description

Selector:"h4 .charge"

Location

Inside of Selector:"dl .summary-table"

Inside dd tag after dt tag containing "Location"

Sponsors

Inside of Selector:"dl .summary-table"

Inside dd tag after dt tag containing "Sponsor(s)"

Full status

Inside table Selector:"#bill-detailed-status-table"

"FULL STATUS" is 4th column

URL

Grab url, no css selector

Example output:

H.159
An act relating to abandoned swimming pools

Location:
House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs

Sponsor(s):
Rep. Jim Masland
Additional Sponsors
Rep. Timothy Briglin

Read First Time and Referred to the Committee on General, Housing & Military Affairs

http://legislature.vermont.gov/bill/status/2016/H.159

Python Libraries planned to use

Parsing arguments: https://docs.python.org/2/library/argparse.html

Fetching Webpage: https://docs.python.org/2/library/urllib.html

Parsing HTML: http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/