Legislative Scorecard

About the scorecard

As an interactive scorecard, scores will update as new votes are taken throughout a legislative session. If a legislator has been in office for more than one session, their profile page will reflect a lifetime score (the average of their prior ACLU-PA scores). You may view their scores from previous sessions by clicking on the session year tabs on their profile page.

Scoring

Each legislator’s score is out of 100 possible percentage points.

Scores are calculated by dividing the number of pro-ACLU-PA votes cast by the total number of scored votes taken. If a member was absent for a scored vote, that vote did not count toward their total number of votes taken.

Because not all legislation is considered in both chambers, the Senate and House will have a different number of opportunities to vote on scored bills or amendments. The same is true for members of the same chamber who vote on scored bills in committee. These differences are factored into our final scorecard calculation.

What we score

We only score legislators' votes on bills we publicly supported or opposed. In order to better reflect the scope of our lobbying efforts—much of which happens early and at multiple stages throughout the legislative process—we score final floor votes in each chamber and key committee and amendment votes on priority bills. By the time a bill reaches the floor for a final vote, much of the deliberative work has already been done. Scoring these additional votes offers a more nuanced depiction of the civil liberties decisions each legislator made throughout the process.