Center for Effective Law Making: Highlights from the 116th Congress Legislative Effectiveness Scores

[George II]

53. That Progressive Punch site can be misleading. There are scores for "Lifetime" and....

....just the current session. I've found the best way to compare members is to use just the current session, which at this time is inaccurate because it's only been about 2 months. If you look at the current session, the first 46 members are tied for 1st, the next 47 members are tied for 47th because there are just too few votes so far to distinguish them from each other.

Comparing "lifetime" scores is inaccurate because you're comparing 30+ year careers to those who have only been in the House for 2 years or so. Plus, as noted before, leaders normally don't participate in votes so there is less to judge, especially recently.

These sites are good for comparing the relative "progressiveness" of members in a particular session or lifetime for those who have been in the House for about the same time. The concept of "progressiveness" changes over the years.

Plus, each score on PP is based on the "progressiveness" of the districts too. For example, a member like Cuellar, in a right leaning District and who may only vote with Democrats say 60% of the time, might get a higher score than a member who votes with the Democrats 80% in a far left leaning District. The expectation is that one in a left-leaning District should vote with Democrats much more than one in a right-leaning District. They use the overall voting record compared to the relative "progressiveness" of the District.