Stories already in the data
Each one starts from a single member's record and explains something about how the measure works — or what a party label hides.
The record turns before the label does
Shelby sided with the Democratic majority 40% of the time in the 103rd Congress, the last under D, and 9% in the 104th, the first under R. Of the 8 switchers the record ranks, 2 had already crossed over before the label changed.
Read the storyWhy nominations are scored apart
Murkowski reads 24% with Democrats on legislation and 37% on nominations — 13 points apart, over 3,350 and 2,062 votes. Both are true. Blending them hides the difference.
The sharpest turn in the record
100% to 13% between the 37th Congress and the 40th, which is the first under R. 87 points across 3 Congresses.
The same label throughout
91% to 9% with the Democratic majority across 9 scored Congresses, under one label the whole time. A line can move this far without a switch.
An independent, scored like anyone else
Sanders has held one label, I, across 18 Congresses, and sided with the Democratic majority on 96% of contested legislation. The measure reads the two party majorities, never the member’s own label.
The delegate badge
Norton votes in committee and in the Committee of the Whole, never on final passage, so these 7 scored Congresses rest on a different set of roll calls from a voting member’s. The badge says so wherever the row is drawn.
The line that barely moved
23 scored Congresses and a range of 6 points, the narrowest of the longest careers the record holds. 13,046 contested votes, of 24,326 cast. Most lines on this site look like this one.