Credit claiming
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Aug 4, 2026 · Posts on X (state legislators) · policy discussion; credit claiming; Education; Families · Source
95%
of State House Democrats score to the left of Cortez on the CSIP scale
CSIP score −0.25 (approximate range −0.29 to −0.21, which understates the uncertainty); negative is left of the scale’s centre, positive right. From 146 donors and 857 roll calls.
CSIP places every official on one left–right scale estimated from roll-call votes, campaign donations and the text of statements; 0 is the centre of the scale, not a definition of moderate. The share says where Cortez sits among State House Democrats, not how far from the centre.
At a glance
6 measures against State House Democrats. The policy areas Cortez talks about and legislates on agree at 0.32 on a 0–1 scale, in the bottom 5% of State House Democrats. Cortez reported $359.8K in the 2026 cycle, in the top tenth of State House Democrats (median $40.4K).
The measures on which Cortez sits furthest from the middle of State House Democrats, each against the same group, with the CSIP score when there is one. Every number is explained in its own section below.
CSIP ideology
−0.25
More conservative than 95% of State House Democrats · ± 0.04
Talk-to-bills agreement
0.32
State House Democrats average 0.54 · ranks 479th of 503
Itemized, 2026
$359.8K
State House Democrats’ median $40.4K · ranks 153rd of 2,082
From Texas, 2026
100%
Of itemized individual dollars · ranks 195th of 1,983 State House Democrats
Party unity
77%
Texas House average 85% · ranks 106th of 143 · 158 votes against the majority of Texas House Democrats
Attendance
91.6%
Texas House average 93.1% · ranks 101st of 143 · 3,700 roll calls
Peer group: State House Democrats. Rank 1 is the highest value in the group; the thick bar is Cortez, the thin grey bar the peer average. The headline is the measure on which Cortez is most unusual among peers (Methods, §08).
What Cortez says
Cortez criticizes policies less than 93% of State House Democrats. Policy criticism in 0% of 96 statements, against 10% for the average State House Democrat; 717th of 764.
An AI model reads each of Cortez’s 96 statements in the TX 2025–26 session (96 posts on X) and marks the kinds of statement it contains: a personal attack, criticism of a policy, discussion of policy, bipartisanship, credit claiming, and extreme labels. A statement can carry several. Every rate is compared with the average for State House Democrats and ranked among them.
Kinds of statement
Share of statements carrying each label, the TX 2025–26 session
0%80%
Cortez
Peers
Rank
Policy discussion20 statements
21%
39%
624th of 764
Credit claiming16 statements
17%
14%
291st of 764
Bipartisanship1 statements
1%
3%
508th of 764
Personal attacks0 statements
0%
3%
584th of 764
Policy criticism0 statements
0%
10%
717th of 764
Show the data
| Row | Cortez | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Policy discussion | 21% | 39% |
| Credit claiming | 17% | 14% |
| Bipartisanship | 1% | 3% |
| Personal attacks | 0% | 3% |
| Policy criticism | 0% | 10% |
96
statements classified
96 posts on X.
Show the data
| Part | Value |
|---|---|
| posts on X | 96 |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is Cortez; the thin grey bar is the average State House Democrats. A longer thick bar means Cortez does this more than peers. Rank 1 is the highest rate in the group.
Extreme labels
Cortez used no extreme labels in 96 statements. The peer average is 1.0%.
No extreme labels in this window.
Who gets the labels
Targets named alongside an extreme label, by number of statements
No targets recorded.
What an extreme label is
Calls a politician, a party or a policy “far left”, “far right”, “MAGA”, “extreme”, “radical”, “woke”, “fascist” or “communist”. The target is who or what the label was aimed at. The lists show the five most used labels and targets; the toggle shows the rest.
Month by month
Share of statements per month, the TX 2025–26 session
No month in this window has 10 or more statements, too few to chart month by month.
How to read the strips
Each row is one kind of statement; each cell is a month, shaded against that row’s own peak (darker = closer to the peak), with the peak and the latest value written at the right. The top row counts statements. The strip covers every month of the TX 2025–26 session, the same span as the rates above, including months with no statements. A month with fewer than 10 statements is hatched, not shaded: one or two posts would swing its rate to 0% or 100%. 22 months are hatched here.
In Cortez’s words
Real statements from the classifier’s example set, with the labels it assigned
Policy discussion
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Oct 22, 2026 · Posts on X (state legislators) · policy discussion; Government Operations and Politics · Source
Bipartisanship
The text of this post is on X; follow the source link to read it.
Aug 27, 2025 · Posts on X (state legislators) · bipartisanship · Source
Examples by category
Up to five recent statements in each category
Overtly questions a named person’s character, integrity or loyalty, or calls them names. Criticising a record or a policy does not count.
No statements in this category in this window.
All 96 statements
Newest first, the TX 2025–26 session
The full feed
Five statements at a time, newest first; filters apply to the statements loaded so far. Export saves the statements that match. Sources: 96 posts on X.
Policy
Education is what Cortez talks about most: 35% of policy statements, 2.3 times the peer share. Talk and legislation agree at 0.32 on a 0–1 scale (State House Democrats average 0.54; 479th of 503).
Each policy statement is tagged by the AI model with one or more of 25 policy areas from the Congressional Research Service list, so the shares say what Cortez talks about. The bills Cortez sponsors and cosponsors carry the same areas, so the two can be compared.
What Cortez talks about
Share of policy statements by area, the TX 2025–26 session
0%39%
Cortez
Peers
Education7 statements
35%
15%
Armed Forces and National Security6 statements
30%
3%
Crime and Law Enforcement3 statements
15%
8%
Families3 statements
15%
5%
Government Operations and Politics3 statements
15%
15%
Show the data
| Row | Cortez | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Education | 35% | 15% |
| Armed Forces and National Security | 30% | 3% |
| Crime and Law Enforcement | 15% | 8% |
| Families | 15% | 5% |
| Government Operations and Politics | 15% | 15% |
How to read the bars
The thick bar is the share of Cortez’s policy statements in an area; the thin grey bar is the average share for State House Democrats. A statement counts once in each of its areas, so shares can add to more than 100%. The five largest areas are shown; the toggle shows the rest.
Talks about · legislates on
Left: share of statements by policy area. Right: share of bills. Areas in order of their share of statements; both sides run from 0 to 39%. Grey ticks are the State House Democrats averages.
Show the data
| Area | Talks about | State House Democrats, talks about | Legislates on | State House Democrats, legislates on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Education | 35% | 15% | 3% | 10% |
| Armed Forces and National Security | 30% | 3% | 8% | 1% |
| Crime and Law Enforcement | 15% | 8% | 16% | 9% |
| Families | 15% | 5% | 0% | 3% |
| Government Operations and Politics | 15% | 15% | 15% | 8% |
0.32
talk-to-bills agreement, 0 to 1
State House Democrats average 0.54. Ranks 479th of 503.
What agreement means, and what it doesn’t
Agreement is 1 minus the distance between the two distributions (Jensen–Shannon): 1 means Cortez legislates on exactly the areas Cortez talks about, in the same proportions; 0 means no overlap. It does not say whether the bills match the positions in the statements, only the subjects. Bills Cortez sponsored count fully, cosponsored bills a quarter. Shown with at least 20 policy statements and 5 bills.
Ideology
Cortez sits at −0.25 on the CSIP scale, left of 0, more conservative than 95% of State House Democrats. Approximate range −0.29 to −0.21, which understates the uncertainty; from 146 donors and 857 roll calls.
CSIP, the lab’s Common-Space Ideal Point, places every official, federal and state, on one left–right scale, estimated from roll-call votes, who gives money to whom, and the text of statements. Negative is left of 0, positive right of it; 0 is the centre of the scale, not a definition of “moderate”.
−0.25
CSIP ideal point
Approximate range −0.29 to −0.21. From 146 donors and 857 roll calls. Run 2026-10-25T215945. Blue is left of 0, red right of 0.
The outlined dot is Cortez, coloured by its side of 0 (blue left, red right, deeper further out); the bar through it is the approximate range (±1.96 standard errors), which understates the uncertainty; the grey ticks below are the medians of Cortez’s groups. 0 is the centre of the scale, not “moderate” by definition.
What this means, and what it doesn’t
The score summarises how an official votes, who funds them and how they talk, relative to everyone else. It does not grade positions as good or bad, and two officials with the same score can differ on any single issue. The ± range is 1.96 standard errors, which understates the uncertainty: scores whose ranges overlap may not differ at all, and even scores whose ranges do not overlap may not differ.
Where Cortez sits
Every official in each group, on the CSIP scale
State House Democrats2,392 · median −0.6
Texas House148 · median +0.3
All State House5,324 · median +0.1
Show the data
| Group | Officials | Median | Share left of Cortez |
|---|---|---|---|
| State House Democrats | 2392 | −0.6 | 95% |
| Texas House | 148 | +0.3 | 39% |
| All State House | 5324 | +0.1 | 43% |
How to read the strips
Every small dot is one official on the same scale, coloured by its own score (blue left of 0, red right of 0, grey at 0, deeper further out) and spread up and down only to keep dots apart; where a group is crowded the dots overlap, and darker patches mean more officials. The large outlined dot is Cortez in every row; the rule is each group’s median. The table under the figure gives the share of each group to the left of Cortez.
Money
Cortez reported $359.8K in the 2026 cycle, 8.9 times the State House Democrats’ median of $40.4K. State filings report no small-donation total. 100% of itemized individual money came from Texas.
Campaign money from state campaign-finance filings, as aggregates only; the lab never shows an individual donor. Campaigns must report by name every person who gives them more than $200 in a cycle (“itemized”); smaller gifts are reported only as one total (“unitemized”), so donor counts, donor states, employers and occupations describe itemized donors only. State filings report no small-gift total, so these figures add up itemized contributions only.
$359.8K
itemized in the 2026 cycle
From 46 itemized donors. State House Democrats’ median $40.4K.
Where the money came from
Each square is one percent of itemized contributions in the 2026 cycle.
- Individuals (itemized)24 squares$85.2K
- PACs and other committees76 squares$274.6K
Show the data
| Source | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Individuals (itemized) | $85.2K | 23.7% |
| PACs and other committees | $274.6K | 76.3% |
What this means, and what it doesn’t
Totals say how much a campaign took in, not how it was spent, and they rise sharply when a seat is up for election; compare cycles with that in mind.
Receipts by cycle
Itemized contributions, 2020 to 2026. The grey line is the State House Democrats’ median for 2026.
Show the data
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2020 cycle | $211.4K |
| 2022 cycle | $269.2K |
| 2024 cycle | $313.6K |
| 2026 cycle | $359.8K |
Top donor states, 2026
Itemized contributions by donor state. 100% came from Texas.
- Texas$85.2K
Small donations
State filings report no total for small gifts.
Not reported in state filings.
Where itemized donors live
Individuals who gave more than $200, by donor state
Show the data
| State | Value |
|---|---|
| Texas | $85.2K |
| Alaska | No data |
| Maine | No data |
| Vermont | No data |
| New Hampshire | No data |
| Washington | No data |
| Idaho | No data |
| Montana | No data |
| North Dakota | No data |
| Minnesota | No data |
| Illinois | No data |
| Wisconsin | No data |
| Michigan | No data |
| New York | No data |
| Rhode Island | No data |
| Massachusetts | No data |
| Oregon | No data |
| Nevada | No data |
| Wyoming | No data |
| South Dakota | No data |
| Iowa | No data |
| Indiana | No data |
| Ohio | No data |
| Pennsylvania | No data |
| New Jersey | No data |
| Connecticut | No data |
| California | No data |
| Utah | No data |
| Colorado | No data |
| Nebraska | No data |
| Missouri | No data |
| Kentucky | No data |
| West Virginia | No data |
| Virginia | No data |
| Maryland | No data |
| Delaware | No data |
| Arizona | No data |
| New Mexico | No data |
| Kansas | No data |
| Arkansas | No data |
| Tennessee | No data |
| North Carolina | No data |
| South Carolina | No data |
| District of Columbia | No data |
| Oklahoma | No data |
| Louisiana | No data |
| Mississippi | No data |
| Alabama | No data |
| Georgia | No data |
| Hawaii | No data |
| Florida | No data |
46
itemized donors
People who gave more than $200
100%
from Texas
Of itemized individual dollars
How to read the map
Every state the same size. Darker states gave more itemized money; hatched states had no itemized donors; the outlined state is Texas. Gifts of $200 or less carry no address and are left out.
Top donor occupations
Itemized, 2026 cycle.
- OWNER$16.0K 3 donors
- ATTORNEY$14.8K 8 donors
- LOBBYIST$14.2K 6 donors
- SELF EMPLOYED$2,500 3 donors
Top committees
PAC and committee contributions, 2026 cycle.
- TEXAS TRIAL LAWYERS ASSOCIATION PAC$37.5K
- PHYSICIANS FOR FREE MARKET HEALTHCARE PAC$30.0K
- TEXAS SANDS PAC$29.0K
- LEGACY 44 PAC$11.0K
- BORDER HEALTH PAC$10.0K
Top employers
Itemized, 2026 cycle.
No employers reported.
Aggregates only. Individual donors are never named.
Votes
Cortez voted with the majority of Texas House Democrats on 77% of party-line votes and missed 8.4% of 3,700 roll calls. Texas House on average: 85% party unity, 93.1% attendance. Across all roll calls, Cortez voted against the majority of Texas House Democrats 158 times.
3,700 roll calls Cortez could vote on in the TX 2025–26 session, compared with Texas House. Attendance is the share with a vote recorded. Party unity counts only party-line roll calls, where most Democrats and most Republicans voted on opposite sides, and is the share of those where Cortez voted with the majority of Texas House Democrats. The count of votes against that majority covers every roll call where the majority took a side.
158
votes against the majority of Texas House Democrats
Party unity 77%, Texas House average 85%, ranks 106th of 143. 3,700 roll calls in the TX 2025–26 session.
Attendance and party unity
The thick bar is Cortez, the thin grey bar the Texas House average. The scale runs from 70% to 100% to show the gap.
70%100%
Cortez
Peers
Rank
Attendance
91.6%
93.1%
101st of 143
Party unity
77%
85%
106th of 143
Show the data
| Row | Cortez | Peers |
|---|---|---|
| Attendance | 91.6% | 93.1% |
| Party unity | 77% | 85% |
What this means, and what it doesn’t
A missed roll call has many causes, from illness to campaigning, so attendance says how often, not why. A vote against the majority can be on procedure as well as substance, and many fall on roll calls where both parties split; the key votes below show the ones that decided something.
Key votes
25 roll calls the lab flagged as key in the TX 2025–26 session
| Party split (yea–nay) | Why it’s key | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 3, 2025 | Did not vote | — | pass | D 44–1 · R 46–37Democrats 44 yea, 1 nay; Republicans 46 yea, 37 nay | became law · party crossover · much discussed | |
| Sep 3, 2025 | Did not vote | — | pass | D 45–0 · R 76–8Democrats 45 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 76 yea, 8 nay | became law · much discussed | |
| Sep 3, 2025 | HB 8 Relating to public school accountability and transparency, including the implementation of an instructionally supportive assessment program and the adoption and administration of assessment instruments in public schools, indicators of achievement, public school performance ratings, and interventions passage | Did not vote | — | pass | D 1–40 · R 78–7Democrats 1 yea, 40 nay; Republicans 78 yea, 7 nay | became law · much discussed |
| Sep 3, 2025 | SB 5 Relating to making supplemental appropriations for disaster relief and preparedness and giving direction and adjustment authority regarding those appropriations. adopt the conference committee report on SB 5. | Did not vote | — | pass | D 43–0 · R 86–0Democrats 43 yea, 0 nay; Republicans 86 yea, 0 nay | became law · much discussed |
| Sep 3, 2025 | HB 8 Relating to public school accountability and transparency, including the implementation of an instructionally supportive assessment program and the adoption and administration of assessment instruments in public schools, indicators of achievement, public school performance ratings, and interventions passage | Did not vote | — | pass | D 45–1 · R 41–41Democrats 45 yea, 1 nay; Republicans 41 yea, 41 nay | became law · party crossover · much discussed |
How key votes are chosen
Automatically: a final-passage or override vote where the measure became law, the margin was under 10%, at least 10% of either party voted against its majority, or the bill was among the 25 most mentioned in officials’ own statements. Up to 25 per window, most recent first; five are shown. Bars show yea on the left, nay on the right, per party.
Votes most often with
The colleagues who voted the same way as Cortez most often
- Claudia OrdazD3,165 shared votes98%
- Eddie MoralesD3,281 shared votes98%
- Oscar LongoriaD2,837 shared votes97%
- Mando MartinezD3,268 shared votes97%
- Mary Ann PerezD3,156 shared votes96%
Votes least often with
The colleagues who voted the same way as Cortez least often
- Briscoe CainR3,147 shared votes52%
- Brian HarrisonR3,298 shared votes52%
- David LoweR3,290 shared votes53%
- Mike OlcottR3,184 shared votes54%
- Steve TothR3,264 shared votes56%
How to read the agreement lists
The share of roll calls both members voted on where they voted the same way, among colleagues sharing at least 50 such votes. High agreement with members of the other party is common on routine votes.
Full voting record
TX 2025–26 session, loads in batches
Legislation
Cortez sponsored 37 bills in the TX 2025–26 session; 11 became law. Cosponsored 45 others. 54% of sponsored bills got out of committee (Texas House average 49%; 55th of 145).
The bills Cortez sponsored and cosponsored in the TX 2025–26 session, from the official bill records, and how far each got: introduced, referred to or acted on in committee, passed one chamber, passed both, became law. A bill counts at every stage it has reached, so the blocks only shrink to the right.
Bills by stage
Counts for the TX 2025–26 session
Show the data
| Role | Introduced | In committee | Passed one chamber | Passed both chambers | Became law |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored | 37 | 37 | 20 | 13 | 11 |
| Cosponsored | 45 | 44 | 32 | 22 | 16 |
How to read the blocks
Ink blocks are bills Cortez sponsored, ochre blocks bills Cortez cosponsored; the figure above each block is the count. Most bills in any legislature never leave committee, so a short staircase is the norm.
54%
of sponsored bills got out of committee
Texas House average 49%. Ranks 55th of 145.
Cosponsorship partners
Colleagues who most often cosponsor with Cortez, by number of shared bills in the TX 2025–26 session; the square shows their party.
- Mihaela Pleșa9
- Don McLaughlin8
- John Lujan8
- Penny Morales Shaw7
- Terri Leo-Wilson7
What this means, and what it doesn’t
The score is the share of sponsored bills that a committee reported out or a chamber passed, with at least 5 sponsored bills, ranked within the peer group. Members of the majority party and committee chairs move more bills, so the rank reflects position in the chamber as well as effort. Cosponsorship partners are the five colleagues who share the most of Cortez’s bills; the toggle shows more.
Bill list
Sponsored and cosponsored, with status and policy area; five are shown, the toggle shows the rest
| HB 308 | Relating to creating the criminal offense of trespass on or near school or day-care center property. | Cosponsor | Aug 28, 2025 | Introduced | Crime and Law Enforcement(model) | Filed Aug 28, 2025 |
| HB 1 | Relating to youth camp emergency plans and preparedness; authorizing penalties. | Cosponsor | Aug 15, 2025 | Became law | Emergency Management(model) | Effective immediately Sep 5, 2025 |
| HR 1529 | Congratulating State Representative Ryan Guillen and State Representative Richard Peña Raymond on becoming the longest-serving desk mates in the history of the Texas House. | Sponsor | Jun 1, 2025 | Passed one chamber | Unassigned | Reported enrolled Jun 3, 2025 |
| HR 1130 | Congratulating Gregg Popovich on his retirement as head coach of the San Antonio Spurs. | Cosponsor | May 12, 2025 | Passed one chamber | Unassigned | Reported enrolled May 24, 2025 |
| HR 1072 | In memory of Gilbert Edward Reinhard Jr. of Floresville. | Sponsor | May 6, 2025 | Passed one chamber | Unassigned | Reported enrolled May 24, 2025 |
Online
A site that changed 1 time in 90 days. Cortez’s official site had 1 page when last crawled on Oct 1, 2026.
The lab crawls Cortez’s official and campaign websites (weekly for Congress, monthly for the states) and keeps every page’s text, so changes can be read later; it also records social accounts and describes the images Cortez posts with a vision model.
Websites
- 1
pages crawled
1changes in 90 days
- 14
pages crawled
0changes in 90 days
How to read the counts
“Pages crawled” is the size of the site at the last crawl; “changes in 90 days” counts pages whose text differed from the previous crawl. Sites change for many routine reasons, such as new press releases, so a high count is not by itself notable.
Social accounts
Images Cortez posted
No images from Cortez’s posts have been described.
About the descriptions
Written by a vision model and may be wrong. Open the post to see the original. Five are shown; the toggle shows the rest.
State floor speeches
No transcribed state floor speeches are matched to this legislator yet.
Floor speeches
Transcribed from chamber video or captions by the lab. They are not classified for kinds of statement.
Methods and sources
How this page was made. Profile built Oct 28, 2026; site last built Oct 28, 2026. Every number on the page is computed from the sources listed here, by the same rules for every official; nothing is written by hand.
The headline
The headline is the measure on which Cortez is most unusual among State House Democrats, chosen by one rule for every official of every party. The candidates are the rate of each kind of statement and of extreme labels, party unity, attendance, the small-donor share, the in-state share and total receipts of the latest cycle, the share of sponsored bills that got out of committee, talk-to-bills agreement, and the CSIP score’s place within the party group.
The builder ranks every measure within the same peer group the page compares it with, and writes each official’s percentile: the share of the group below the value, ties counting half, so 0.5 is the median and a value shared by many never ranks first. A measure’s score is how far that percentile sits from the median (0 in the middle, 0.5 at either end), and the highest score leads if it is above 0.25, outside the middle half of the group. Scores within 0.03 of each other are a tie, broken in this order: votes against the party majority, kinds of statement, ideology, roll calls missed, small donations, in-state money, legislation, agreement, extreme labels, receipts.
A measure counts only with at least 200 statements, 100 roll calls or 5 sponsored bills behind it and a peer group of at least 10. Two things never lead: high party unity or attendance, where most members sit, and a high rate of a kind of statement backed by fewer than 10 statements. When nothing qualifies, the headline is a neutral fact instead: statements classified, or years in office. The wording always names the direction (“in the bottom 5% of …”, “votes against the majority of …”).
Identifiers
- Profile id
- 12d67093-ab4c-425d-afa3-e5777db09d1c
- Open States
- ocd-person/12d67093-ab4c-425d-afa3-e5777db09d1c
Bulk files with the same data for every official:
Freshness of this profile’s data
- What politicians sayOct 27, 20261 days agoMembers of Congress: tweets since 2017; press releases, newsletters and floor speeches since 2022. State legislators: tweets since May 2024. Governors: tweets since January 2025. Labels from an LLM classifier.
- Roll calls (state)Oct 21, 20267 days agoOpen States floor roll calls, 2019 on (none for AK and MO).
- Bills (state)Oct 28, 2026todayOpen States bills and sponsors, 2019 on; stages from roll calls.
- Campaign money (state)no dateState campaign-finance agencies, 2019 on; aggregates only.
- Ideology (CSIP)Oct 25, 20263 days agoCommon-Space Ideal Points (CSIP), current validated run.
- WebsitesOct 25, 20263 days agoWeekly crawls of federal sites since April 2026; monthly state crawls since June 2026.
- State floor speechesOct 21, 20267 days agoState floor speech turns (published transcripts and captions), 2020 on; not LLM-classified.
How the measures work
- What politicians say
- Every post, press release, newsletter and congressional floor speech is read by a language model and marked for personal attacks, policy criticism, policy discussion, bipartisanship and credit claiming. A statement can be in several. Rates are shares of statements in the window. The methods paper.
- Extreme labels
- A statement has an extreme label when it calls a politician, party or policy “far left”, “far right”, “MAGA”, “extreme”, “radical”, “woke”, “fascist” or “communist”. The target is who the label is aimed at.
- Policy areas and agreement
- Statements and bills share 25 Congressional Research Service policy areas (state bills are assigned by a language model). Agreement is 1 − Jensen–Shannon distance between the two distributions, shown with at least 20 policy statements and 5 bills.
- Ideology (CSIP)
- Common-Space Ideal Points place federal and state officials on one left–right scale, estimated jointly from roll calls, campaign contributions and the text of statements, with standard errors. Only a validated run is shown. The methods paper.
- Campaign money
- Campaigns report by name only donors who give more than $200 in a cycle; smaller gifts are reported as one total. Federal totals and the small-donor share come from the FEC’s financial summaries of each campaign committee. Donor counts, donor states, employers and occupations cover itemized donors only. State filings report no small-gift totals, so state figures are itemized only. The lab never publishes donor names.
- Votes and key votes
- Attendance, party unity and the count of votes against the majority of an official’s own party come from roll calls (Voteview for Congress, chamber records for the states). Key votes are final-passage or override votes that became law, were decided by under 10%, saw at least 10% of a party vote against its majority, or concerned one of the 25 bills most mentioned in officials’ statements.
- Peers and ranks
- Comparisons are with the same party, chamber and level (for example House Democrats); state legislators are compared within their state and chamber for votes. Every comparison names its group. Rank 1 is the highest value in the group; tied values share the average of their ranks, and the percentile is the share of the group below the value, ties counting half.
America’s Political Pulse · Polarization Research Lab