About the data

How figures are calculated

Bill milestones

Each bill’s furthest stage is derived from its action history: filed, referred to committee, heard, reported, passed the chamber of origin, passed the second chamber, sent to the governor, and enacted. In a one-chamber legislature, passing that chamber passes the Legislature. If a later milestone appears, earlier ones are filled in (a bill signed by the governor necessarily passed the Legislature), so counts never go backwards.

Outcomes

Became law means signed, or allowed to take effect without signature. Bills still pending when a session ends are marked as died. Bills and proposed constitutional amendments are what “legislation” counts throughout; resolutions are tracked separately. Bill types come from the classification Open States gives each bill.

Party-line votes

A record vote is party-line when most voting Republicans and most voting Democrats took opposite sides. Party unity is the share of those votes on which a member sided with their own party’s majority. Members elected on several party lines count with the first one listed. Nonpartisan legislatures show no party figures.

Authored bills and pass rate

Authored counts legislation where the member is a primary author. Pass rate is the share of that legislation that passed the Legislature (including bills later vetoed).

Missed votes

Record votes in the member’s chamber during their service where no vote was recorded for them. Members excused for illness or official business are counted as missed.

Committees

Report rate is the share of bills referred to a committee that it reported out. Time to report is days from referral to the committee report. Procedural calendars committees are excluded.

Districts and past sessions

Every session is kept. Each session is drawn on the district plan it was elected on, and past sessions show the members who held each seat at the session’s end.

Key session dates

Convening and adjournment come from Open States session dates, unless a state page describes its constitutional calendar.

Limitations

• Some chambers record votes as totals only, without each member’s vote. Those roll calls appear in vote counts but not in individual voting records.
• Members are matched to roll-call names by surname, chamber and initials. A small number of ambiguous names (shared surnames, typos in journals) cannot be matched and are left out of individual statistics.
• Data refreshes from Open States, which itself collects each legislature’s website, so recent actions can lag the official record by a day or more. The official record is always linked from each bill.