Getting Started
How Scoring Works
Every way a member of Congress earns points for your team.
4 min read
Your legislators earn points by doing the real work of Congress: casting votes, writing bills, building coalitions, and moving legislation forward. Lex will walk you through every way points are earned.
Casting votes
| Activity | Points |
|---|---|
| Vote cast (Yea or Nay) | +2 |
| Vote present | 0 |
| Missed vote | −3 |
Introducing bills
A bill earns more when it attracts more cosponsors, because real legislation builds coalitions, while a bill with no cosponsors is closer to a press release.
| Bill introduced | Points |
|---|---|
| Alone or 1 cosponsor | +1 |
| 2–9 cosponsors | +3 |
| 10 or more cosponsors | +8 |
| Commemorative resolution (any size) | +1 |
A commemorative resolution, one that recognizes a day, group, or event or expresses the sense of the chamber, cannot become law, so it earns a flat +1 no matter how many cosponsors it gathers. That keeps a ceremonial resolution from ever outscoring substantive legislation.
Building coalitions
| Activity | Points |
|---|---|
| Cosponsoring a bill | +1 each |
| Bipartisan (cross-party) cosponsor | +3 each |
| Cross-party vote (yea to pass the other party’s bill) | +5 each |
Both bipartisan bonuses — cosponsoring the other party’s bill (+3) and voting yea to pass it (+5) — apply only to substantive bills that can become law, not to ceremonial resolutions. A cross-party vote is rarer than a cross-party cosponsorship, so it is worth a little more.
Moving a bill forward
| Milestone (sponsor) | Points |
|---|---|
| Reported out of committee | +15 |
| Passes one chamber | +25 |
| Signed into law | +50 |
Amendments
| Activity | Points |
|---|---|
| Amendment sponsored | +1 |
| Amendment adopted | +10 |
Multipliers
| Modifier | Effect |
|---|---|
| Key Legislator (your weekly pick) | 2× all points |
District Work Points
When Congress is in recess there are no head-to-head matchups, but members do not stop working. Back home in their districts and states they introduce bills and cosponsor legislation, and that recess activity earns your team District Work Points.
District Work Points never change a matchup score. They act as a tiebreaker: when two teams finish with the same record, the one whose reps did more district work ranks higher in the standings and in playoff seeding.