Grading Members of Congress.
Where every member’s grade falls
Each member’s grade score from 0 to 100 across, age up the side
Source: Project Curia grades, built from FEC filings, STOCK Act disclosures, the congressional record and the voter surveys cited on each issue page.
Each of the 536 dots is a member with an age on record. The grade is read across: further right is a higher score. The vertical axis is age, which spreads the dots apart. The colour is the member’s party. Pick Funding, Trading or Alignment to place every member by that one part of the grade instead.
Find a member by name or ZIP code, or pick a dot, to see their letter and the three part scores behind it.
A to F on a curve across the 536 members with a record, so a letter says where a member sits relative to the rest of Congress, not against a perfect score no one reaches.
A member needs a record before they get a letter. Until they have served 90 days and filed a campaign finance report, their page says so instead of showing a grade, and they are left out of the curve. Missing data is not a clean record.
Highest and lowest, by party
Democrats
Highest grades
- A98
Sen · MA
Elizabeth Warren
- A98
Rep · MN-5
Ilhan Omar
- A97
Rep · MI-12
Rashida Tlaib
- A97
Rep · NY-14
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
- A97
Rep · FL-10
Maxwell Frost
Lowest grades
- F29
Rep · TX-33
Marc A. Veasey
- F30
Sen · RI
Jack Reed
- F31
Rep · MA-8
Stephen F. Lynch
- F31
Rep · MA-5
Katherine M. Clark
- F32
Rep · TN-9
Steve Cohen
Republicans
Highest grades
- A93
Rep · AZ-2
Elijah Crane
- A91
Rep · AZ-5
Andy Biggs
- A91
Rep · CO-4
Lauren Boebert
- A91
Rep · IL-15
Mary E. Miller
- A91
Rep · TX-13
Ronny Jackson
Lowest grades
- F17
Rep · OH-14
David P. Joyce
- F18
Rep · WV-1
Carol D. Miller
- F20
Sen · KS
Jerry Moran
- F20
Rep · FL-5
John H. Rutherford
- F20
Rep · UT-1
Blake D. Moore
The five highest and five lowest grade scores in each party, out of 100, with the letter beside each. Both ends are shown for both parties, side by side. Open a row for its three part scores. The 3 independents are on the chart.
What goes into the grade
How they are funded
50%
Whether they trade stocks
35%
Backing what their own voters want
15%
Funding: their small-donor share and how little they lean on PAC money, each measured against their own chamber.
Trading: members who do not trade individual stocks score highest. Trading also caps the grade: fifty or more disclosed trades cannot earn above a C, and any late filing under the STOCK Act cannot earn above a B, no matter how clean the rest of the record.
Alignment: of the measures at least half of the member's own party's voters want, how many the member has backed. Backing a measure counts in full; voting against one on the floor counts as nothing. Never signing on is treated as neither, worth partial credit, because no position is not opposition.
A cosponsorship is a partial stand-in for representing your voters. A member can agree with a goal and decline to sign a particular bill, or write their own. We count backing the bill, which is the record that exists, not the private view.
The voter benchmark is national polling by party, not the member's own district or state, and the grade does not adjust for a competitive or a safe seat.
The money figures are disclosed money only. Spending by outside groups that do not name their donors never appears in these numbers. A low PAC share is not proof a member runs clean, only that their committee reported little direct PAC money.
For graded members, no action on an issue earns the same partial credit as any silence, and no disclosed trades scores as a clean trading record.
Attendance used to be part of the grade and no longer is. Almost every member votes nearly all of the time, and the exceptions are mostly life events, a new baby, a run for higher office, an illness. A member's attendance is still on their page; it does not move the letter.
The measures behind the alignment score
Share of each party’s voters who want it
- Democratic voters 95%, Republican voters 77%
- Democratic voters 93%, Republican voters 81%
- Democratic voters 92%, Republican voters 59%
- Democratic voters 92%, Republican voters 58%
- Democratic voters 91%, Republican voters 59%
The two figures are the share of each party's voters who want the measure, from the surveys cited on each issue page. A member is graded on a measure when their own party's figure is at least half, and only where the measure reached their chamber: 9 for a Democrat, 10 for a Republican in the House and 6 for a Republican senator. Some are wanted by Democratic voters, some by Republican voters, some by both, so neither party is judged against the other's wish list.