Coding rubric · v1.1.0
Freedom Voting Score
This document sets out how a roll-call vote would be judged: whether it is relevant to freedom at all, which direction counts as pro-freedom, and how much it should weigh.
1. Stated premises
This is not a claim of neutrality. Scoring legislation against freedom requires saying what freedom means, and any such definition is contestable. Each premise is published with the strongest honest objection to it — a rubric that only argues its own side reads as advocacy, and those objections are the raw material for a contest submission.
Freedom here means the absence of government restriction on individual action. A vote that removes or narrows a legal restriction on what a person may do, say, own, ingest, build, or sell counts as pro-freedom; a vote that creates or widens one counts as anti-freedom.
Objection: This is a negative-liberty definition. It does not count capability — a person with no money and no healthcare is unfree in a sense this rubric cannot see. Someone who holds a positive-liberty view will find the resulting scores measure the wrong thing entirely, and they are not being unreasonable.
Votes are coded on the restriction they impose or remove, not on whether the policy works. A regulation that demonstrably saves lives is still coded as a restriction.
Objection: This deliberately ignores consequences. It means an effective safety rule and a pointless one score identically, which many readers will consider the central fact about them.
Only the restriction imposed by the federal government is scored. A vote that preempts a stricter state law is coded as pro-freedom on the federal axis even though it reduces state authority.
Objection: Federalism is itself a liberty tradition, and treating preemption as straightforwardly pro-freedom takes a side in a genuine dispute among people who all call themselves pro-liberty.
Party is never an input. Coding is done from the text and effect of the measure, blind to which party sponsored it or how the caucuses split.
Objection: Blind coding does not guarantee balanced output. If one party more often sponsors deregulation, a restriction-based rubric will favor it regardless of intent, and calling the process neutral will not answer that.
Every coding is contestable by anyone, including the office of the member affected. Disputes and their resolutions are published whether or not we change our mind.
Objection: A published contest process is not the same as being right, and a determined critic can reasonably say it lets us keep our answer while appearing open.
2. What is not coded
Ambiguous votes are excluded, never guessed. A score built from 200 confidently-coded votes is worth more than one built from 900 where a third were coin-flips — and every bad coding is a correction waiting to happen with a named legislator's office on the other end.
Procedural votes are excluded: motions to adjourn, quorum calls, previous question, motions to table, motions to refer, appeals of the chair, rule adoptions, and motions to recommit. Cloture motions and motions to proceed are NOT excluded — they are in scope.
These record a position on floor management, not on policy. GovTrack and every serious scorecard exclude them, and a member who votes the party line on procedure while defecting on substance would otherwise be scored on the wrong thing. Cloture is the deliberate exception (v1.1.0): in the current Senate it is frequently where the real decision happens — a measure that clears cloture usually passes — so excluding it would rest every senator’s score on a thin and unrepresentative slice of their record. That is a judgment about how the chamber actually works, and it is recorded here rather than left implicit.
Votes where over 90% of the chamber voted the same way are excluded.
A near-unanimous vote separates nobody. Including them inflates every score toward the same number and buries the votes that actually distinguish members.
Commemorative and administrative measures are excluded: post office namings, medals, resolutions of recognition, and internal chamber housekeeping.
No restriction is created or removed.
Omnibus and continuing-resolution votes are excluded unless a single freedom-relevant provision is clearly the operative reason for the vote.
A 2,000-page package contains provisions pointing in both directions. Coding it as one direction asserts a reason for the vote that the record does not support.
Nomination votes are excluded.
A vote on a person is not a vote on a restriction. Inferring policy preference from a confirmation vote is exactly the party-line proxy this project removed once already.
Votes where the pro-freedom direction is genuinely disputed between defensible liberty positions are excluded, and the exclusion is published with its reasoning.
Abortion, immigration enforcement, trade restrictions, and campaign-finance limits all have serious liberty arguments on both sides. Picking one and calling it "the" freedom position would be the single fastest way to convince half the audience the whole index is a political instrument.
3. Magnitude
| Weight | Tier | Test |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | Structural | Creates, abolishes, or fundamentally redefines a restriction affecting the general population. e.g. Establishing or repealing a federal licensing regime; creating a new category of prohibited conduct. |
| 2 | Substantial | Materially widens or narrows an existing restriction, or changes who it applies to. e.g. Extending an existing reporting requirement to a new class of person; raising or lowering a statutory threshold. |
| 1 | Marginal | Adjusts an existing restriction at the edges without changing its structure. e.g. Altering a fee, a deadline, or a filing form. |
5. Per-category criteria
1st Amendment
Measures affecting speech, press, assembly, petition, or compelled disclosure of expression or association.
Pro-freedom
- Narrowing what speech may be penalized or compelled
- Strengthening protection for journalists and their sources
- Reducing government access to membership or donor lists
- Expanding public access to government records
Anti-freedom
- Creating new categories of unlawful expression
- Imposing disclosure requirements on political or associational speech
- Expanding government authority to compel platform moderation
Not scored in this category
- Campaign-finance limits — contested direction: serious liberty arguments exist for both disclosure and anonymity
2nd Amendment
Measures affecting the purchase, possession, carry, or transfer of firearms.
Pro-freedom
- Removing or narrowing a purchase, possession, or carry restriction
- Adding due-process protection before a deprivation
- Preempting stricter local rules (see the federal-scope premise)
Anti-freedom
- Creating or widening a prohibition on a class of firearm, magazine, or accessory
- Adding a permit, waiting period, or registration requirement
- Expanding categories of prohibited persons without individualised process
4th Amendment
Measures affecting search, seizure, surveillance, data collection, or forfeiture.
Pro-freedom
- Adding a warrant requirement
- Shortening data-retention periods or narrowing collection authority
- Requiring conviction before permanent forfeiture
- Creating a remedy for unlawful search
Anti-freedom
- Expanding warrantless collection or surveillance authority
- Extending retention periods for non-suspects
- Broadening civil forfeiture or the agencies that may profit from it
Economic Freedom
Measures affecting tax rates, tax bases, mandatory spending obligations on individuals, and federal debt.
Pro-freedom
- Reducing a rate or narrowing a tax base
- Removing a mandatory payment obligation on individuals or firms
Anti-freedom
- Raising a rate or broadening a base
- Creating a new mandatory payment or penalty for non-participation
Not scored in this category
- Spending levels as such — a vote to fund an existing program is not a restriction on anyone and is coded only where it creates or removes an obligation
- Tariffs and trade restrictions — contested direction: restricting trade is a restriction, but so is the retaliation and the domestic regulation it substitutes for
Criminal Justice
Measures affecting sentencing, detention, prosecution, or remedies against official misconduct.
Pro-freedom
- Reducing mandatory minimums or restoring judicial discretion
- Expanding expungement, sealing, or pretrial release
- Creating or preserving a civil remedy against official misconduct
Anti-freedom
- Creating new federal crimes or enhancing penalties
- Expanding pretrial detention or immunity from suit
Drug Policy
Measures affecting the legality of possessing, producing, or supplying a substance.
Pro-freedom
- Descheduling, decriminalizing, or legalizing
- Removing penalties for possession or personal cultivation
- Protecting state-legal activity from federal enforcement
Anti-freedom
- Scheduling a new substance or raising penalties
- Expanding federal enforcement against state-legal activity
Property Rights
Measures affecting the use, transfer, or taking of private property.
Pro-freedom
- Narrowing eminent-domain authority or raising the compensation standard
- Removing a federal restriction on land or building use
Anti-freedom
- Expanding takings authority
- Adding federal use restrictions on private land
Not scored in this category
- Environmental measures where the restriction protects an identifiable third party from harm — coded only where the restriction is on use as such, and excluded where the vote is genuinely a dispute about whose property right prevails
Religious Liberty
Measures affecting the free exercise of religion or government establishment of it.
Pro-freedom
- Raising the standard of review for burdens on religious exercise
- Removing a federal requirement that conflicts with religious practice
Anti-freedom
- Imposing requirements that substantially burden religious exercise without accommodation
- Conditioning a public benefit on religious practice or its absence
Not scored in this category
- Exemptions that transfer a burden onto an identifiable third party — coded per category under the conflict rule, or excluded where no defensible per-category direction exists
Education Choice
Measures affecting whether families may direct their children's schooling.
Pro-freedom
- Creating or expanding portable funding
- Removing federal constraints on homeschooling or non-public schooling
Anti-freedom
- Restricting eligibility for existing choice programs
- Adding federal regulatory conditions on non-public schools
Not scored in this category
- Funding levels for public schools as such — not a restriction on any family
Regulatory Burden
Measures affecting entry into an occupation or market, or the compliance load on doing so.
Pro-freedom
- Removing a licensing, permitting, or certification requirement
- Requiring cost-benefit review or congressional approval before major rules take effect
- Sunsetting existing rules
Anti-freedom
- Creating a new licensing or permitting regime
- Delegating new open-ended rulemaking authority
6. Process
- coding
- Each vote is coded from the measure text and the official summary. The coder records category, direction, magnitude, and a one-sentence reason citing the operative provision. Codings with no citable provision are rejected.
- review
- Every coding is reviewed by a second person before publication. Disagreements that survive review are resolved by exclusion, not by averaging the two opinions.
- contest
- Anyone — including the office of a scored member — may contest a coding. Contests are logged publicly with the submitter, the argument, and the outcome, whether or not the coding changes. Resolutions appear in the corrections log.
- versioning
- The rubric is versioned. Scores are published against a stated rubric version, and changing the rubric produces a new score edition rather than silently restating history.
- leaderboards
- No single "best" or "worst legislator" ranking is published as a default view. The category decomposition is the primary presentation, because a single number invites exactly the partisan reading the rubric is built to avoid.
Disagree with a rule here? That is the point — write to support@freedomrankings.com. Objections raised before adoption are far cheaper to act on than objections raised after a legislator has a number attached to their name. See also the main methodology and the corrections log.