The Only Legislative Scorecard You'll Need
Committee of the Whole votes hardly tell you anything.
For the past year, I’ve unintentionally become something of an expert when it comes to the very niche subject of trans rights in the state of Kansas. This is partly because of my obsessive need to create detailed spreadsheets, an urge which propelled me to create a scorecard for every elected official in the Kansas Legislature and their record on trans rights.
While I don’t generally like to talk highly for myself, I feel confident in saying this: my scorecard is way better than every other scorecard. I’ve spent an unholy amount of hours working on this so I think I’ve earned the right to say that.
You see, most scorecards only track how legislators vote in Committee of the Whole votes. That is, when the entire House or Senate votes on a bill, the vote a legislator casts in that moment is tracked… and absolutely nothing else. This is a largely unsatisfactory and unhelpful metric; the Committee of the Whole vote is simply one part of a much longer and more complicated process. It doesn’t actually tell you who in the legislature is committed to your cause — and who vehemently opposes it.
What’s so different about this scorecard?
In the name of being as thorough as possible, I’ve developed a scorecard that tracks the following:
Committee votes
Committee of the Whole votes
Veto votes
House/Senate votes (in odd cases where one chamber has to vote twice while the other doesn’t; it’s happened at least three times in Kansas in relation to LGBTQ+ bills, so it’s a real thing)
Who’s introducing/sponsoring bills
Who’s amending bills
Who’s testifying & what they’re saying
In addition, I have three different ways of calculating scores based on weighted value (i.e., how important you think a bill is compared to others) and how recent the bill is.
Despite the political chaos that 2025 has brought so far, updating my spreadsheet has brought me a sense of joy and calm that nothing else quite matches. Maybe it’ll do the same for you. Who knows.
Why does a scorecard even matter?
Scorecards aren’t just for devout believers of American democracy or whatever they’re calling it. Even if you are a jaded, grassroots organizer (ask me how I know), having an idea of who in power is responsible for laws that are making your life worse — and who could potentially stand in their way — can help you identify trends and prepare for the future. For example, because I’ve spent way too long looking at all of this, I was able to:
Identify legislators to target for a veto vote. We were able to successfully convince two of them to change their vote which prevented a bill from becoming law.
Predict what would become law this year, which gave us the opportunity to start preparing in advance.
Quickly rally people to submit hundreds of pages of testimony. Even though the House won’t admit it, it’s all this testimony that most likely helped us stop another really terrible anti-trans bill from reaching the Governor’s desk this year.
Once again: if you are engaged in any kind of political organizing, understanding who’s in power, what they’re doing, and what strategies they’re using is absolutely essential to help keep your community resilient.
What are you waiting for?! Come download my template!
While I continue working on a monster of a project related to trans politics, I thought I would at least stop by to share my template so that you can use it for whatever purpose you so desire. Not only are you allowed to edit it but I actively encouraged to do so — the political process of Kansas is unique to Kansas, after all!
Additionally, I’m uploading my current Kansas trans bill scorecard so you can see an example of what a fully developed scorecard can look like.
Feel free to share! Make sure to HAVE FUN and YELL AT SOME POLITICIANS!!! 😊😊😊
Doing the Lord's work. Thank you!