How It Works
Where our information comes from, how we check it, and what we can't know.
Our approach
My U.S. Representative turns public records into plain-English pages. We show the record, say where it came from, and let you draw your own conclusions. We don't endorse candidates or parties, and every representative is shown with the same layout and the same rules.
Every page separates three kinds of information:
- Official records — roll-call votes, bills, and campaign finance filings published by Congress, the Federal Election Commission and other government sources.
- Independent reporting — news and research we cite as evidence, always linked.
- Our analysis — promise statuses, summaries and computed statistics. These are always labeled.
When information is missing or uncertain, we say so instead of filling the gap.
Representatives and districts
Current members of Congress come from the public-domain congress-legislators project, checked against official sources. District boundaries come from the U.S. Census Bureau.
ZIP codes don't follow district lines. When a ZIP code falls in more than one congressional district, we tell you and let you choose your district or enter a street address. Street addresses are sent to the Census Bureau's geocoder to find your district and are not stored.
People elected to a future term are not shown as current officeholders until their term begins.
Votes and bills
House votes come from the Office of the Clerk and Senate votes from the U.S. Senate's official roll-call records. Bill titles, summaries, sponsors and status come from the Congress.gov API; summaries are written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
We describe a bill as law only when the official record shows it became law. Proposed provisions are always labeled as proposed.
How we label votes
Not every recorded vote is a vote for or against a bill. We label each roll call with one of four types, using only the official question text (and, for House resolutions, the official description). The same rules apply to every bill and every party.
| Label | What it means | Official question text it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Final passage | The vote decided whether the bill or resolution passes this chamber. | On Passage; On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass (or Agree, or Concur); On Concurring in the Senate Amendment; On Agreeing to the Conference Report; On Agreeing to a resolution that is not a rule |
| Amendment | A vote on a proposed change, not the whole bill. | On Agreeing to the Amendment |
| Procedural | The vote set how a bill is handled or debated. It is not a vote for or against the bill. | On Ordering the Previous Question; On Agreeing to a rule ("Providing for consideration of…"); On Motion to Recommit, Commit, Table, Refer or Discharge; cloture and motions to proceed in the Senate |
| Other | Anything else, described in the official record's own words. | Adjournment, quorum calls, nominations, veto overrides, elections of the Speaker |
Votes by party come from the party totals in the official roll call when the chamber publishes them. Otherwise we count each member's recorded vote by their current party, and say so.
Where a bill stands comes from its official actions on Congress.gov: introduced, referred to or acted on by a committee, passed by each chamber, presented to the President, and became law. Simple resolutions (H.Res., S.Res.) apply to one chamber, and concurrent resolutions (H.Con.Res., S.Con.Res.) to both, and neither goes to the President or becomes law.
Promises
Promises are researched by people, not collected automatically. To be tracked, a promise must be:
- A specific, checkable commitment made publicly by the representative or their campaign.
- Supported by an original source we can link to and archive.
Each promise gets one of six statuses:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Fulfilled | The evidence shows the commitment was carried out. |
| Partially fulfilled | Part of the commitment was carried out, or it was carried out in a narrower form. |
| In progress | There is documented action toward the commitment, but it isn't complete. |
| Not fulfilled | The evidence shows the commitment was not carried out, or the period for it has passed. |
| Reversed | The representative later acted against the commitment. |
| Not enough evidence | We couldn't find enough evidence either way. This never means the promise was broken. |
A vote alone never counts as fulfilling a promise. Each status shows the evidence behind it, any evidence that complicates it, and the date it was last reviewed.
Campaign finance
Campaign figures come from the Federal Election Commission and describe what each candidate's committees reported for a clearly labeled period. Contributions show who gave money, not why a representative voted a certain way.
Campaign finance, personal financial disclosures, gifts and travel, and official office spending are separate records with different meanings. We never add them together.
Community statistics
District statistics come from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey 5-year estimates, which are survey estimates with margins of error. We show what public data says about a place. We don't claim that any representative caused those conditions, and we don't predict how a decision will affect any household.
Member analysis
Members see analysis computed from the same public records shown free on every page — for example, how often a representative voted, how often their vote matched the outcome or most of their party, and campaign money by donation size. Each figure states what it was calculated from. These statistics describe behavior; they aren't scores, and they don't judge whether a vote was right.
Paying for membership never changes how any representative is shown, and no one can pay to influence a status, ranking or summary.
What we can't determine
- Why a representative voted a certain way.
- Whether a contribution influenced a decision.
- How a bill will affect a particular person.
- Local officials in places we haven't verified yet.
Updates and corrections
Official records update every night. Each page shows when its data was last updated. If a source is temporarily unavailable, we keep the last verified version and say so.
If something is wrong, report it. Errors in official records are corrected at the source and flow through on the next update. Errors in our analysis are corrected by a reviewer, dated, and noted on the page.
Last updated Oct 27, 2026.