Our Standards
How this paper works
What we cover
Only two kinds of legislation: bills that have passed — signed into law or sent to the President — and bills that are up for a vote, meaning they have passed one chamber or been placed on a chamber's calendar for floor consideration. Bills still sitting in committee are left out; most never move.
Where the words come from
Each bill is broken into its individual policy changes using the summaries written by the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan research arm of Congress. Where CRS summarizes a bill section by section, each section becomes its own provision; shorter bills are divided by the distinct changes CRS describes. We use the summary of the most advanced version of the bill and link every bill to its official record on Congress.gov.
Who wrote it, and how they voted
Sponsors and cosponsors come from the official bill record published by GovInfo. House votes come from the Clerk of the House; Senate votes come from Voteview, the academic archive of every recorded congressional vote. We show the votes that decided a bill — passage, final agreement between the chambers, and veto overrides — not procedural motions. Many bills pass by voice vote or unanimous consent, which leave no record of individual votes.
What members said
We collect statements two ways. First, we read each member’s official press-release feed and keep releases that name a bill we cover. Second, an AI research assistant searches for the member’s own words about the bill — floor remarks in the Congressional Record, releases, op-eds, interviews, and posts — and records the exact passage with its link. Before any quote from that search is published, our software opens the source page and confirms the quote appears there word-for-word and that the page attributes it to that member. Quotes that fail that check are held for an editor, who reads the source and publishes the quote only after confirming who said it; those are labeled as checked by an editor. Short summaries of a member’s reasoning are written by AI from the source and labeled as such; the quote itself is never altered.
Who may vote
One verified person, one vote, on every provision. Before voting, each reader photographs a government-issued ID and takes a live selfie that must match it, and is checked against everyone already registered. Votes may be changed or withdrawn at any time. Results are published only in aggregate; no individual's votes are ever shown.
What we keep
We do not store names, document numbers, photographs, or document images. We keep a one-way, keyed fingerprint of each verified identity — enough to recognize a second registration, useless for recovering who someone is — along with state, ZIP code, birth year, and the type of document presented. The ID check itself is run by Stripe, and as soon as it finishes we instruct Stripe to delete the photos and personal details it collected.
What the votes mean
These votes measure the considered opinion of verified readers. They are not official ballots and bind no member of Congress.