The Scriptural and Reformed Basis for JustMeasure

The lane profile

Labels use a lane profile. They are not a running total of every vote. Tier 2 penalties are grouped into seven lanes: life, children, honest money, war and peace, justice and truth, liberty and conscience, and corruption and stewardship.

On each scored bill, exposure in a lane is the heaviest Tier 2 penalty that bill carried in that lane. Residual is the penalty that member actually drew there. A lane's rate is residual divided by exposure. The lane is worth that rate times the full authored weight of the heaviest yea or nay penalty rule that fired in that lane in the member's chamber. The Tier 2 scale is the sum of those lane points. Repeating the same compromise inside one lane does not pile the weights up. Compromise across several lanes still does.

A lane with fewer than 3 distinct scored roll calls counts at n/3 (Deuteronomy 19:15). A bundled bill, and a bill with a reviewer-verified overreach provision, counts its Tier 2 residual at half weight. A reviewed cap at Tier 2 also counts at half weight, except H.R. 498 and H.R. 3492, which count at full tier-2 weight. Their exposure and their points are not halved, for any member. Those halves are not stacked, so the factor does not fall below one half.

An ordinary score event is still the tag's base weight times the vote-type multiplier in the table below. A Tier 1 event stores the lane weight of 100. It is not multiplied. Positive fitness orders people who already share a label. It does not set the label.

Example

A senator votes yea on final passage of a non-bundled bill tagged abortion, after a human reading of the operative text. The Tier 1 event stores 100. The final-passage multiplier is not applied. The label is Disqualifying vote on record.

A representative votes nay on cloture for a bill tagged debt_spending. The credit is 8 × 0.3 = 2.4, stored as 2 points of positive fitness. The same nay can still offset Tier 2 residual in that lane when the vote was contested. That offset uses the vote margin only. The lane then counts at half weight.

Absences

Missing the vote, or voting present, on final passage of a bill that defends innocent life or protects children counts 30. The same absence on a bill that exposes abuse counts 15. The penalty is Tier 2, not Tier 1 (James 4:17). It applies only when showing up to vote yea was the moral obligation, and not on amendments or procedural motions.

Tested record

A Qualified label claims a tested record on the gravest votes. Members seated after those votes, or who never cast one, show their score but are not called Qualified until tested.

Sponsorship cap

Sponsorship cap. A member who sponsors or cosponsors a measure on our reviewed list cannot be labeled Qualified. In the current Congress the list includes the reviewed bills and resolutions. In the prior Congress, only an operative class-A bill caps the label. Prior-Congress resolutions are notes and do not cap. The window is the current and prior Congress, about four years, because a recent deliberate act of the office stays on the record for one full Congress after. The list covers measures whose text expands access to, funding for, or legal protection of abortion, or of gender-transition interventions for minors. The member's score does not change; the highest label available is Compromised. Each listed measure was read and signed off by a named reviewer. Withdrawn cosponsorships do not count. We apply this because Scripture treats framing unjust law as the lawmaker's own act (Isa 10:1; Ps 94:20), and the sixth commandment requires protecting the innocent (Exod 20:13; Westminster Larger Catechism 135-136). For measures about gender-transition interventions for minors, the same commandment forbids wounding the body (Westminster Larger Catechism 136), and Genesis 1:27 records that male and female he created them. Measures on which faithful Christians disagree (for example IVF, contraception and the Equal Rights Amendment) are not on the list unless a separate, published theology ruling places them there.

This is a lesser label cap for measures that are not Tier 1. Sponsorship of a clean Tier 1 bill can still disqualify under the existing rule. A disqualifying vote on record stays that label. An existing Compromises on record, Grave pattern on record, or Too few scored votes band is unchanged. The cap applies only to a record that would otherwise be Qualified on the 118th–119th Congress record, and it is applied before the tested-record gate.

Sponsoring a protective bill does not earn credit. Protecting life is the baseline duty of the office, and we measure it through recorded votes, which cost more than a cosponsorship.

This note is shown for completeness. It is not scored. A sponsorship in the 117th Congress or earlier stays a note. Prior-Congress resolutions are notes and do not cap. Operative class-A bills in the current and prior Congress can cap the label. The label window is the current and prior Congress, about four years.

In practice this cap falls on one side. Every measure on the current list was introduced by members of the minority party. Many are messaging bills the majority will not bring to a vote, so a cosponsorship is often the only public record of the member's position. We apply the cap because the act itself is what we measure, not because of who performs it. We also checked the opposite risk: counting contested measures (IVF, contraception, the ERA) would fall mostly on majority-party members, and we excluded them for the same reason, pending a published theology ruling.

Adam Malin signed these eleven measures on 2026-10-22: H.Con.Res. 65, H.R. 12, H.R. 9448, H.R. 10600, H.Res. 238, and H.Res. 1428 of the 119th Congress, and H.R. 12, H.R. 782, H.R. 1723, H.R. 2573, and S. 317 of the 118th Congress. Held entries stay pending and do not cap a label.

Past floor votes

Past floor votes on life and on children count at a disclosed prudential weight. A vote in the prior Congress counts at 0.5. A vote two Congresses back counts at 0.25. Nothing older is scored. The weight counts toward the lane minimum: the votes add their weights, not one full vote each. An absence, or a present, on a bill that defends life or children still counts, at that same reduced weight. An absence on a bill that expands abortion does not. Scripture gives no half-life for sin. Recent conduct is better evidence of how a member uses the office now. The numbers 0.5 and 0.25, and the two-Congress limit, are chosen numbers, open to revision. Decay changes the score only. Whether a cap applies does not decay.

A yea to expand abortion in that window caps the label at Compromises on record and does not disqualify. The cap reaches only a record that would otherwise be Qualified on the 118th–119th Congress record. It is applied with the sponsorship cap, before the tested-record gate. S. 4554 is a sense of Congress. It is scored at the 0.5 factor for a non-operative measure, not at a full harm exposure of 100, and a yea still caps the label. H.R. 8297 is scored as a cap only. It is Tier 1 eligible, pending human text review and Adam sign-off, and it is not applied as Tier 1. A past version of a capped bill keeps the 0.5 weight. A nay on a past protection bill is scored at the decayed weight. It does not disqualify, and it is not this cap.

The Respect for Marriage Act yea is tier 2 under family harm, not under children. The lane weight is 50, the same tier-2 weight as life and children, and the 117th Congress vote counts at 0.25 toward the lane minimum. The act contradicts the creation ordinance of marriage (Genesis 1:27; Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4-6; Westminster Confession 24.1). Some Christians backed its religious-liberty amendment, and its practical effect largely codified Obergefell. Neither changes what the law declares marriage to be. The Equality Act is held and is not scored. H.R. 5, the Parents Bill of Rights, is family and prudential. The end is commanded (Deuteronomy 6:6-7; Ephesians 6:4; Westminster Larger Catechism 129) and the means are federal mandates on local schools. It is shown with the 0.5 factor. A nay adds no compromise points and does not cost Qualified.

Reserve-fund amendments bind nothing. They are notes, not scores. Endorsing the taking of innocent life is an act against the commandment, while declining a non-binding reserve fund is not. Contraception, IVF, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act stay excluded.

Past penalties mirror whichever party set each Congress's agenda. The agenda decides which questions reach a roll call. We do not tune these rules to equalize outcomes.

Unsettled summaries

Which bills reach a roll call is partly chance. Within each chamber, the scored bills of each lane are resampled 200 times with replacement (seed 42). Agreement is the share of those resamples in which the member stays in the same band. The note “Unsettled: this summary changes when we re-sample which bills are scored” appears when agreement is below 90 percent, in muted type. Grave pattern on record, Compromises on record, and Qualified receive this check. A Tier 1 vote is a recorded fact and is never marked unsettled.

Debt, spending, and war

Debt, spending and war-funding votes count as prudential compromises at reduced weight. By themselves they can produce 'Compromises on record' but never 'Grave pattern on record.' They count at full weight when the bill or record shows a named injustice: debasing money, defaulting on debts already owed, or funding unauthorized or documented unjust war (Leviticus 19:35-36; Psalm 37:21; Westminster Confession 23.2; Habakkuk 2:12). We cap these lanes because Scripture governs these areas without settling most individual votes, and the gravest labels must rest on what Scripture plainly forbids.

The national debt is a real burden passed to children who cannot consent to it. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children (Proverbs 13:22). The eighth commandment requires frugality, and the Westminster Larger Catechism lists it among the duties of that commandment (WLC 141). These votes still count. They count at reduced weight. Together with other marks they can add up to Grave pattern on record. They never produce that label by themselves. The same rule applies to every member.

Omnibus bills, appropriations, and surveillance votes stay at full weight. The reduced weight is the debt and war-funding lanes. A named-injustice tag is not applied to any bill in this record until a human review cites the provision. Until then those votes stay at the reduced weight. The same weight applies to every member.

Why a cloture nay on a clean protection bill counts

In the Senate most bills cannot come to a vote on their merits unless sixty senators agree to end debate. When cloture fails, the bill stops. On a bill that does one thing, a nay on cloture is not a scheduling preference. It is the vote that decides whether the protection becomes law. On S. 6, the Born-Alive bill, cloture failed 52-47 on January 22, 2025, and the bill went no further.

We treat such a nay as opposing the protection only when three things are true: the bill is clean; the bill adds an enforceable duty, penalty, or remedy beyond existing law; and the member voted for no clean bill that carries the same protection. Scripture does not let us excuse a refusal by its form: “If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it?” (Proverbs 24:11-12). 1 U.S.C. 8 imposes no duty of care and no penalty. A yea for any clean bill carrying the same protection keeps a nay at the lower tier. The ninth commandment forbids misconstructing intentions (Westminster Larger Catechism 145). We grade the vote, not the heart. The same rule applies to every member.

H.R. 498 is capped at tier 2 so it can never be a Tier 1 or disqualifying event, and it counts at full tier-2 weight. Its exposure and its points are not halved, for any member. It stays a matched vehicle with H.R. 3492. H.R. 3492 has no Tier 1 sign-off. Adam Malin, 2026-10-21: it is mixed. The "otherwise conveying ... medications" clause in (h)(2), combined with aiding-and-abetting law, could reach parents, and the text does not exclude that, so a good-faith Christian could vote nay over that means without opposing the protection. H.R. 3492 is capped at tier 2 on the same terms: it can never be a Tier 1 or disqualifying event, it counts at full tier-2 weight, and its exposure and its points are not halved, for any member. It stays a matched vehicle with H.R. 498.

Votes against one's own caucus

“Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil” (Exodus 23:2) is why a costly vote against one's own caucus is worth noticing. A card may say “Voted against own caucus on N of M scored votes.” The count uses a cohort of at least 10. It is the same descriptive table for every member. It is not a score input, and it does not withhold credits. The same rule applies to every member.

Not covered yet

Challengers and newcomers are not named and are not scored. Presidents, governors, and other executives are not graded from this legislative record. Presidential filings can appear in the office counts, and in this snapshot those rows are Too few scored votes. State legislators are not covered. Committee votes are not covered. Presidential nominations are not graded.

Models and sources

Bill summaries and tags are drafted by Claude Haiku 5.5 (anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5), prompt bill-enrichment-v6.1, temperature 0.1. The model sees the bill id, title, summary, policy area, latest action, chamber, and source URL, plus tags already on the bill. It does not see the sponsor or the sponsor's party. Appropriations, war funding, omnibus bills, a family-policy tag paired with life or child protection, recommit motions, continuing appropriations, and titles that say “for other purposes” beside appropriations or an authorization go to Claude Sonnet 5.5 (anthropic/claude-sonnet-5.5). So do mixed or unclear readings, a bill marked needs review, and any restraint-lane command the first model flags.

A bill marked needs review does not score until a person reviews it. On the restraint lane, a low-confidence result does not score. An ordinary tag is not held back only because confidence is low. The moral rules are human-written. Verses on ordinary tags are human-authored. Restraint citations have to be on a fixed list.

Roll calls: House Clerk EVS and Senate LIS. Bills and CRS summaries: Congress.gov API. Names and offices: FEC bulk files. Sitting members: House Clerk member list and the Senate contact list. ZIP districts: Census ZCTA to congressional district. A district is kept when it holds at least 5 percent of the ZIP code's land. A ZIP that crosses a state line uses the state with the most land.