Welcome to the legislative scoring tool. This tool is based on NOMINATE (an acronym for Nominal Three-Step Estimation), a multidimensional scaling application developed by US political scientists Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal in the early 1980s to analyze preferential and choice data, such as legislative roll-call voting behavior. The updated WNOMINATE version enables researchers to understand how lawmakers align politically, vote on issues, and identify patterns of coalition building and polarization.

These graphs represent the ideological leaning of each legislator from the selected session. All non-unanimous roll call votes during the session are used to match how often legislators vote on the same side of a bill. The traditional liberal/conservative ideological spectrum is the first dimension score from the WNOMINATE analysis. Scores to the left of the zero point indicate more liberal voting normally associated with the Democrat Party. Scores to the right indicate conservative voting associated with the Republican party. Longer bars indicate how strong those tendencies are for each legislator. Shorter bars indicate more moderate tendencies.

Democrat legislators are indicated in dark blue bars. Republican legislators who typically vote the conservative position are shown in red. Light blue legislators caucus with Republicans, but often vote with their more liberal colleagues on the left. Light red legislators caucus with Democrats, but often vote with their more conservative colleagues on the right.

Click the legislator bars to see their vote comparisons to the party leaders and strongest liberal and conservative. Choose any number of legislators to compare votes. Matching and differing votes will be grouped in the vote panels. Click on individual votes to see the roster of votes displayed across the chamber.

Welcome to the legislative scoring tool. This tool is based on NOMINATE (an acronym for Nominal Three-Step Estimation), a multidimensional scaling application developed by US political scientists Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal in the early 1980s to analyze preferential and choice data, such as legislative roll-call voting behavior. The updated WNOMINATE version enables researchers to understand how lawmakers align politically, vote on issues, and identify patterns of coalition building and polarization.

These graphs represent the ideological leaning of each legislator from the selected session. All non-unanimous roll call votes during the session are used to match how often legislators vote on the same side of a bill. The traditional liberal/conservative ideological spectrum is the first dimension score from the WNOMINATE analysis. Scores to the left of (or above) the zero point indicate more liberal voting normally associated with the Democrat Party. Scores to the right (or below) indicate conservative voting associated with the Republican party. Longer bars indicate how strong those tendencies are for each legislator. Shorter bars indicate more moderate tendencies.

Democrat legislators are indicated in dark blue bars. Republican legislators who typically vote the conservative position are shown in red. Light blue legislators caucus with Republicans, but often vote with their more liberal colleagues on the left. Light red legislators caucus with Democrats, but often vote with their more conservative colleagues on the right.