How we choose what you see

Each person gets up to 10 receipts. A receipt is one thing they did, with a date and a link to the official record.

A computer program picks the receipts. It follows the same written rules for everyone, whatever their party. We never pick by topic, and we never pick to make someone look good or bad.

1. The same slots, in the same order

The program goes down this list and fills each slot it can. It stops at 10 receipts. If a slot is empty (say, someone sponsored no bills), the next one moves up. So the slots near the bottom show up only when slots above them are empty.

EthicsSlot 1 · up to 1
A document an ethics office published about them, if there is one. It is not a finding of wrongdoing unless it says so.
Members of Congress only.
Biggest votesSlot 2 · up to 3
How they voted on their chamber's biggest new laws. Everyone in the same chamber gets the same votes.
Broke with partySlot 3 · up to 1
A vote where they took the side most of their own party did not.
SponsoredSlot 4 · up to 2
Bills they introduced as the main sponsor, and how far each one got.
Amendment or petitionSlot 5 · up to 1
A change they tried to make to a bill, or a petition they started or signed to force a House vote.
Members of Congress only.
ConfirmationSlot 6 · up to 1
A vote on someone the President chose for a top job. The closest vote comes first.
U.S. senators only.
Leads a committeeSlot 7 · up to 1
A committee they chair, or lead for the party that is not in the majority.
Members of Congress only.
MoneySlot 8 · up to 1
How much their campaign raised and where the money came from.
Stock tradeSlot 9 · up to 1
The biggest stock trade they reported this Congress.
Members of Congress only.
Jobs and giftsSlot 10 · up to 1
Other jobs, gifts, and board seats they report on their yearly financial form.
Washington legislators only.
SpokeSlot 11 · up to 1
A time they spoke in their chamber, about one of the biggest laws if they did.
Members of Congress only.

If there are still free places at the end, they go in turns to more of these, in this order: party break, bills they sponsored, biggest votes, amendment or petition, jobs and gifts, floor speech, office spending, and confirmation vote.

2. How we pick the biggest votes

Congress

We start with every law passed this Congress with a recorded vote (laws passed without one, by voice or by consent, can't be on the list, because there is no record of how each person voted). For each one, we take the chamber's last recorded vote to pass it. Then we rank those votes by floor attention, which adds up:

how many different members spoke about the bill on the floor (from the Congressional Record), and
how many recorded votes the chamber took on it.

If two bills tie, the closer vote comes first, then the more recent one. Everyone in the House gets the same 3 votes, and everyone in the Senate gets the same 3. We show how each person voted on them, including when they didn't vote. (Someone who was not in office yet for one of those votes gets the next one on the list.) If there are free places at the end of someone's receipts, they may get more votes from the same list.

Why not just the closest votes? We tried that. It brought up little-known bills that happened to pass by two votes, ahead of the laws people argued about most.

Washington State

The Washington Legislature doesn't publish a written record of floor debate, so we can't measure attention. Instead we take bills that became law where the losing side got at least 10% of the votes, and put the closest votes first.

3. What counts as breaking with your party

For each vote, we count how the members of each party voted. If someone voted Yes when most of their party voted No, or No when most voted Yes, that is a break.

Not voting, or voting Present, is never a break.
If a party splits evenly on a vote, no one in it can break with it on that vote.
In Congress we count votes to pass a bill, votes on amendments, and Senate votes to confirm someone. Votes about procedure (like when to hold a debate) don't count. In Washington we count only final votes to pass a bill.
Independents are compared with the party they side with more often when the two parties disagree.

If someone has several breaks, votes that weren't lopsided come first (where the losing side got at least 10%). Next come votes to pass a bill in Congress, or bills that became law in Washington. Then the break where the fewest members of their own party joined them.

4. Where bill descriptions come from

Every description comes from an official source, word for word. We never write or rewrite them.

Congress: summaries by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), nonpartisan experts at the Library of Congress. CRS writes a new summary at some steps as a bill moves along. For a vote, we use the newest summary CRS wrote for a step on or before the day of the vote, and we name that step (for example, “Reported to Senate”). The bill may have changed after that step, so the official bill page has the final text. If CRS has summarized only later steps, we show no description rather than one of a different text.
If CRS hasn't summarized a bill someone sponsored, we show the bill's official title instead, and say so.
Amendments: the amendment's stated purpose, or its official description when no purpose is listed.
Senate confirmation votes: the person and the job, as printed on the roll call.
Washington: the Legislature's own official description of the bill.

We show the first sentence of a summary whole, never cut short, because cutting can leave out part of what a bill does. The full summary is one tap away, or on the bill's official page when it is very long. Every description says where it came from.

5. What the “Analysis” label means

Most receipts copy one fact from one official record. A few rest on our own math: counting how each party voted, adding up campaign gifts from many filings, adding up office spending, or counting committee meetings. Those carry this label: Analysis

You can check our math against the records each receipt links to.

6. What we don't have

Quotes. We link to floor speeches, but we don't quote them yet.
Positions on issues. No neutral official source says where someone stands, so we show what they did, not what they believe.
Hearing attendance. We don't have records of who showed up to committee hearings.
Names of individual donors. For Congress we name the PACs that gave the most. For Washington legislators, the records we load group gifts by type (people, PACs, unions), not by giver.
Other states. State legislators are covered for Washington only.

7. Who runs this site

Congress Cards is a free, noncommercial project on SlopeBuds.com. No ads, no paywall, no sign-up.

The exact rules, as written in our code

These sentences live in the program itself, word for word. They are harder to read, but they are exact.

Which receipts, in what order: Every record is filled the same way: up to 1 ethics document, the member's position on their chamber's 3 key votes, 1 vote against most of their party, their 2 bills that got furthest, 1 amendment or petition, 1 Senate confirmation vote, 1 committee they lead, their biggest campaign givers, 1 stock trade, 1 item from their financial disclosure and 1 floor speech. Empty places go, in turn, to the next party break, bill, key vote, amendment or petition, disclosure item, speech, office spending and confirmation vote.
Biggest votes in Congress: Key votes are the chamber's last final vote on each measure that became law, ranked by floor attention: the number of different members who spoke on the floor about the measure (Congressional Record items GPO tagged with it, or whose title names it; debate on a special rule counts for the measure the rule brings up) plus the number of recorded votes the chamber took on it. Ties go to the closer vote, then the more recent one.
Biggest votes in Washington: Key votes are the chamber's last final-passage vote on each bill that became law, where the losing side had at least 10% of the votes, closest margin first (WA publishes no floor debate record to measure attention by).
Which votes are votes to pass: Final votes are votes to pass a measure, to agree to the other chamber's version, to adopt a resolution (not a special rule), or to override a veto. Amendment votes include Senate motions to waive budget rules for an amendment. Cloture, motions to proceed, table, recommit, the previous question and special rules are procedural.
Which bill summary describes a vote: A vote is described by the Congressional Research Service summary of the version in play that day: the latest summary whose action date is on or before the vote date (on the same day, the later legislative step). When CRS has summarized only later versions, we show no summary rather than describe a different text.

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