FAQ
Who's on GovScorecard?
State legislators in all fifty states and members of Congress, and we're now adding officials from the hundred largest cities and counties in the country. With more than 90,000 local governments, filling in the rest will take a while.
Where does the information come from?
From the public record each legislature keeps: its bills, who sponsored them and how far each one got. We gather it through public legislative data services and fix mistakes as we find them.
Does GovScorecard take sides?
No. We measure what legislators have done in office rather than what they might do, and no score is meant to reward a party or a point of view. We show the record and leave the judging to you.
How are the scores made?
From the record, in a way you can check. For now there's one score, the passage rate: the share of a legislator's bills that became law, counting only bills from completed sessions whose fate has been decided. You can see it for the bills they led, the bills they co-sponsored, or both. Our How we score page explains it, along with the scores still to come.
What happens to my address?
We send it to Geocodio, an address lookup service, to find your districts, and keep only the districts. They're stored in your browser and forgotten when you close it or after 24 hours, whichever comes first.
I'm a legislator. How do I claim my profile?
Fill out the form on our page for legislators using your official government email, which is how we confirm it's you.