2014 Report Cards
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Ideology Score
These statistics dissect the legislative records of Members of Congress during the 113th Congress (Jan 3, 2013-Jan 2, 2015), as of Jan 12, 2015.
A higher or lower number below doesn’t necessarily make a legislator any better or worse, or more or less effective, than other Members of Congress. We present these statistics for you to understand the quantitative aspects of legislating and make your own judgements based on what legislative activities you think are important.
Keep in mind that there are many important aspects of being a legislator besides what can be measured, such as constituent services and performing oversight of the executive branch, which aren’t reflected here.
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- All Representatives (441)
- Safe House Seats (397)
- House Republicans (234)
- House Democrats (207)
- Serving 10+ Years (House) (177)
- All Senators (100)
- House Freshmen (84)
- House Sophomores (82)
- Serving 10+ Years (Senate) (54)
- Senate Democrats (53)
- House Cmte. Chairs/RkMembs (45)
- Senate Republicans (45)
- Competitive House Seats (44)
- Senate Cmte. Chairs/RkMembs (41)
- Senate Freshmen (17)
- Senate Sophomores (13)
Ideology Score
Our unique ideology analysis assigns a score to Members of Congress according to their legislative behavior by whether they sponsor and cosponsor overlapping sets of bills and resolutions with other Members of Congress. The score can be interpreted as a left—right scale measuring the dominant ideological difference or differences among Members of Congress, although of course it only takes into account a small aspect of reality.
For more, see our methodology. Although we do not report a margin of error, the scores fluctuate significantly over time because of the limited data used in the analysis. An ideology score is not computed for Members of Congress who introduced fewer than 10 bills or who have a low leadership score, as there is usually not enough data in these cases to compute reliable statistics. Note that because on this page only legislative activity in the 113th Congress is considered, the ideology score here may differ from those elsewhere on GovTrack.
Additional Notes
Leadership/Ideology: The leadership and ideology scores are not displayed for Members of Congress who introduced fewer than 10 bills, or, for ideology, for Members of Congress that have a low leadership score, as there is usually not enough data in these cases to compute reliable leadership and ideology statistics.
Missing Bills: We exclude bills from some statistics where the sponsor’s original intent is not in the final bill because the bill’s text was replaced in whole with unrelated provisions (i.e. it became a vehicle for passage of unrelated provisions).
Ranking Members (RkMembs): The chair of a committee is always selected from the political party that holds the most seats in the chamber, called the “majority party”. The “ranking member” (sometimes “RkMembs”) is the title given to the senior-most member of the committee not in the majority party.
Freshmen/Sophomores: Freshmen and sophomores are Members of Congress whose first term (in the same chamber at the end of the 113th Congress) was the 113th Congress (freshmen) or 112th (sophomores). Members of Congress who took office within the last few months of a Congress are considered freshmen in the next Congress as well.