The My Legislator newsletter helps you hold your state lawmakers accountable. Sign up to get a weekly email on your legislators’ activities in the Capitol.

Here’s what to know about how the newsletter works.

Where does all this information about my legislators come from?

My Legislator is powered by the Digital Democracy database. It combines a variety of information and data from throughout state government that is publicly available but isolated and difficult to access. This database combines these related data sources so they can be compared to reveal relationships, patterns and aberrations in the Legislature and the policy-making process. 

The database includes four categories of information: transcripts, bill information, financial information and district data. Get a full breakdown on our Digital Democracy data sources and methodology page.

How are legislator rankings calculated?

We use standard competition (“1224”) ranking to determine legislators’ ranks. All legislators with the same value (e.g. number of bills passed) share the same rank, after which a gap is left in the ranking numbers. For example, if two legislators tie for the second-most bills passed, the ranks will be 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, and so on (skipping 3).

This means that if there are last-place ties, the lowest rank will not be 120, the total number of California legislators. Depending on how many people make up last-place ties, the lowest rank may be different across categories.  

How is legislator bipartisanship calculated?

Our bipartisanship scoring is based on bill authorship records. We count the number of instances in which a legislator of one party authors or co-authors a bill version with a member of another party. For example, if a Democrat legislator was the lead author for a bill version and Republican legislators are recorded as co-authors, then we consider that an instance of bipartisanship.

Lead authors are primarily responsible for the content of the bill and guiding it through the legislative process. Co-authors are legislators who, with the permission of the lead authors, add their name to the bill in a show of support for the bill; they are not usually responsible for the specific wording of the bill.

There are three combinations that we count as instances of bipartisanship:

  1. Republican lead author(s) with Democrat lead author(s)
  2. Republican lead author(s) with Democrat co-author(s)
  3. Democrat lead author(s) with Republican co-author(s)

Each bill version that matches one of the three combinations counts as one instance, increasing the scores of all involved legislators by one. Then, we rank the legislators based on their final scores.

What are “noteworthy” votes of the week?

Lawmakers may cast hundreds of votes in a week, more than can reasonably fit into a newsletter. We use a range of metrics from Digital Democracy to assess which of your legislators’ votes to highlight, including: 

  • Bills with votes that diverge from any legislators’ past voting patterns
  • Intensity of discussions on bills, such as the number and length of back-and-forth debates between speakers
  • Number and influence of organizations taking positions on bills
  • Bills’ relevance to current news coverage or ongoing policy debates 
  • Amount of text added to and removed from bills
  • Overall number of speakers during legislative discussions

What do the bill statuses mean?

The PASS and FAIL statuses that we show in the newsletter indicate the vote results by a particular committee or chamber. 

A failed vote does not necessarily mean that the bill has died and cannot move forward. Committees can vote to reconsider a bill that they had not originally passed.

In order for a bill to get to the governor’s desk, the same version of the bill must pass both Senate and Assembly floors at least once.

Can I sign up for more than two legislators?

Right now, you can only sign for one state senator and one assemblymember per email address. If you’re interested in tracking more than two legislators, you can sign up for the newsletter using another email address.

How do I sign up? How do I unsubscribe?

To sign up, fill out your details on our sign-up page.

To unsubscribe, click on the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.

More questions?

If you have questions, suggestions or thoughts for our team, contact us at digitaldemocracy@calmatters.org.