GovTrack's Political Spectrum & Legislative Leadership ranking

The Political Spectrum & Legislative Leadership ranking was an analysis of the co-sponsorship of bills in Congress. It was published by GovTrack, a project of Civic Impulse, LLC, which uses open data to track the activities of Congress. This page contains information on the rankings as of the conclusion of the 112th Congress. After the 112th Congress, GovTrack calculated leadership and ideology rankings as separate scores.

Methodology

GovTrack has published ranking reports since 2004. The Political Spectrum & Legislative Leadership ranking was based on two factors - ideology and leadership. These were then plotted on a graph.

Ideology

The political spectrum ideology score was based on how members of Congress cosponsor bills. Members who cosponsored in a similar manner were put next to each other on the left-right axis of the graph, while those that cosponsored different sets of bills were put at different ends.

Leadership

Legislative leadership was also based on patterns of co-sponsorship. As GovTrack explained, "Roughly speaking, each time a Member of Congress cosponsors another Member of Congress's bill,, the first Member of Congress gives the second Member of Congress some leadership points . . . in proportion to how many leadership points the first Member of Congress has."

2011-2012 Congress

The members of the 112th Congress received the following rankings:

• There were 88 representatives that received the description of "rank-and-file Republican"
• There were 70 representatives that received the description of "rank-and-file Democrat"
• There were 29 representatives that received the description of "moderate Republican follower"
• There were 26 representatives that received the description of "far-right Republican"
• There were 25 representatives that received the description of "centrist Republican"
• There were 24 representatives that received the description of "moderate Republican leader"
• There were 22 representatives that received the description of "moderate Democratic leader"
• There were 21 representatives that received the description of "centrist Democrat"
• There were 19 representatives that received the description of "far-right Republican leader"
• There were 18 representatives that received the description of "moderate Democratic follower"
• There were 18 representatives that received the description of "far-left Democrat"
• There were 18 representatives that received the description of "centrist Republican follower"
• There were 16 representatives that received the description of "far-left Democratic leader"
• There were 15 representatives that received the description of "centrist Democratic follower"
• There were 4 representatives that received the description of "centrist Republican leader"
• There were 2 representatives that received the description of "lonely far-left Democrat"
• There were 2 representatives that received the description of "lonely far-right Republican follower"
• There was 1 representative that received the description of "centrist Democratic leader"

External links

• GovTrack
• Political Spectrum & Legislative Leadership rankings on GovTrack
• GovTrack on Twitter