How to read this site

This site shows how elected officials actually vote. Here is what each chart and number means, in plain language.

The left–right score (−1 to +1)

Every lawmaker gets one number based on their record of recorded votes, not on speeches or campaign promises. Lawmakers who often vote together end up close to each other.

The score for Congress comes from Voteview (the method is called DW-NOMINATE). It is a summary of voting patterns, not a grade, and says nothing about whether a position is right or wrong.

The Rankings page

• The strip: each colored tick is one member, placed by their score. Blue = Democrat, red = Republican, purple = Independent or other.
• The party bar: how many members of each party are in the list you're looking at.
• Party unity %: how often a member votes the same way as most of their own party.
• Votes: how many recorded floor votes (roll calls) the member was counted in.
• Sorting and filters: click any column header to sort; click again to reverse. Use the menus to switch to a state legislature, or narrow by chamber, party or state.

Member pages

• Score box: the member's left–right score.
• Chamber rank: their place in their chamber, from #1 (most liberal) to the last number (most conservative).
• Party unity and roll calls: as above; “missed” means they didn't vote.
• Where they sit: a bar chart of everyone in the chamber. Taller bars mean more members have a score in that range. The colored line is this member.
• Two-dimensional map: each dot is one member. Left–right (dimension 1) is the main left–right score. Up–down (dimension 2) captures other voting patterns that cut across party lines; historically these were issues like regional or civil-rights splits. Today it matters much less than left–right. The large outlined dot is the person whose page you're on.
• Recent votes: their latest recorded votes, with links to the full roll call.

State legislators

State scores are calculated by this site from state roll-call votes and use the same −1 to +1 range. But they only compare members within the same chamber of the same state. A +0.5 in the Texas Senate doesn't mean the same as +0.5 in the Vermont House, or in Congress. Some chambers can't be scored when there isn't enough vote data or enough members of both parties.

Executive branch

Presidents, vice presidents and Cabinet members don't vote on bills, so their pages show other public records:

• Presidential documents chart: how many executive orders, proclamations and other official documents the President signed each month.
• Confirmation vote: how each senator voted when the Senate confirmed a Cabinet member.
• Tie-breaking votes: Senate votes that ended in a tie, which the Vice President broke.

Courts

Judges don't vote on bills, so the Courts pages show other public records. Where a piece of information isn't publicly available in clean form, the page says so instead of guessing.

U.S. Supreme Court

• Appointed by / confirmation vote: which President nominated each justice, and how the Senate voted to confirm them (e.g. 52–48).
• In majority / dissented: out of the cases a justice took part in, how often they were on the winning side, and how often they disagreed with the outcome (a dissent).
• Vote split: how many justices joined the majority vs. dissented, e.g. 6–3 or 9–0.
• Agreement grid: each square shows how often two justices ended up on the same side. Darker squares mean they agree more often.
• MQ score (Martin-Quinn): a left–right estimate for justices based on how they vote together. Negative = more liberal, positive = more conservative, and the chart puts liberal on the left like the rest of the site. It uses a different scale than the −1 to +1 Congress score (it usually runs from about −4 to +4), so a justice's score can't be compared with a lawmaker's. Scores are published once a year, after each term ends.
• Terms: the Court's year (“October Term”) starts in October and its decisions mostly come out by the end of June. The page says which terms its data covers.

Federal judges

• Courts: appeals courts (“circuits”) hear appeals from the district (trial) courts in their region; each circuit's district courts are listed under it.
• Appointing president and party: the President who nominated the judge, and that President's party. This is shown instead of a left–right score: no score is calculated for lower-court judges.
• Senior status: a semi-retired judge who still hears some cases. “Active” judges hold one of the court's regular seats.
• Confirmation: the Senate vote as recorded by the Federal Judicial Center, e.g. 52–45 (ayes–nays) for a roll call, or “voice vote”.

State supreme courts

• How justices are chosen: differs by state: elected by voters (with or without party labels), appointed by the governor (sometimes from a list made by a commission), chosen by the legislature, or appointed and then kept or removed by voters in yes/no “retention” elections.
• Decisions: no clean, free, public source of state supreme court votes was found, so these pages say “No public decision data available for this court” rather than showing partial numbers.

Where the data comes from

• Congress: votes and scores from Voteview (UCLA), downloaded again every day when the site rebuilds.
• State legislatures: people and votes from Open States. Vote data is refreshed monthly.
• Executive branch: the Federal Register, Wikipedia, senate.gov and Voteview.
• Courts: supremecourt.gov, the Supreme Court Database, Oyez, Martin-Quinn scores, the Federal Judicial Center and Ballotpedia. Court sources update less often (the Supreme Court Database once a year).

For the exact formulas and files, see the methodology page. Last built 2026-10-26 17:26 UTC.