This article evaluates information made available through the websites of Brazilian State legislatures on state and district representatives from the 2003-2007 period, in addition to presenting a proposal for building an indicator to evaluate and measure the degree of availability of information on these actors through these sites. Through application of this indicator, we evaluate the analytical advantages of applying a collective biography approach that uses Brazilian legislative websites as its exclusive source. We seek to show how, given the insufficient transparency in the homepages of most of the state legislatures, exclusive or predominant use of this source is not recommendable for knowledge and monitoring of the political action of the elites that are part of it. This is not the case for Brazilian federal representatives (Câmara de Deputados).
Brazilian parliamentary elites; collective biographies; Internet; legislature websites
