Every member of Congress is graded. Signers and refusers alike.

The Pledge is the opt-in version of accountability. The Report Card is the opt-out version. A member either signs and is held to it by choice, or does not sign and is held to it anyway. There's no third option where a voting record stays private from the people who paid for it.

One verdict per member. KEPT or BROKE.

Each member of Congress gets one verdict. It is KEPT or BROKE. There is no score. There is no percentage. There is no arithmetic of any kind.

Why no number? A number can be gamed. A receipt cannot. A number hides choices about which votes matter most. A verdict that comes from a recorded event hides no such choice. You can check the vote yourself.

Every verdict links to the votes and actions behind it.

Hard events only. Nothing else.

Two kinds of event move a verdict:

• On a CLEAN or COMPOUND vehicle: the member's recorded floor vote on a bill that carries the Plank.
• On a TAINTED vehicle: the member's recorded conduct on the live levers published in that bill's determination. The up-or-down vote does not move the verdict in either direction.

Nothing else touches the verdict. Speeches, press releases and promises do not move it. A vote is a record. The rest is talk.

A recorded vote applies to every Plank in the bill, unless a division lever was used.

Some bills carry several Planks and nothing else. These are COMPOUND vehicles. A recorded vote on such a bill applies to every Plank the bill carries.

A member may back some of those Planks and not others. To show it, the member has to use a division lever:

• a motion to divide the bill,
• a demand for separate votes,
• or sponsorship of single-Plank bills.

A no vote with no division lever used is a no on every Plank in the bill.

Visible credit. It never erases a broken verdict.

Some acts do not move the verdict. They are listed on the member's card as receipts, each with a date and a citation:

• sponsorships,
• strip motions led,
• discharge signatures,
• clean reintroductions,
• leadership votes on floor access.

Leadership votes on floor access are previous-question and rules votes in the House, and consent to or objection against floor consideration in the Senate. They are listed as receipts with dates and citations. They never move the verdict, for or against a member.

Distinctions are visible credit. They never offset a broken verdict, because the verdict is not a sum.

A member is graded only on the levers their chamber gives them.

The House and the Senate are different machines. No member is graded on an outcome outside their own power. Each member is graded on whether they used every lever they hold.

Every bill that carries a Plank gets a published status.

A Plank is an outcome. A bill is a vehicle. The status describes the vehicle. It speaks to one question only: can the record of this bill show who supports the Plank?

“Tainted doesn't mean the added material is bad. It means the bill can no longer prove who supports the plank.” Definition of the TAINTED label

The label speaks to grading, never to merit. It does not ask why material was added. A hostile add-on and a friendly add-on read the same.

Status attaches to a bill version, not a bill

One bill can have many versions: as introduced, as reported, as amended, as engrossed (passed by one chamber), and as a conference report. Each version gets its own status. A member is graded on the version live at the time of each recorded vote.

The four statuses

Clean

Every provision is needed to carry out the Plank's one stated outcome. Mechanism, definitions, effective dates, enforcement and severability text all count as needed.

Compound

Every provision carries one or more ratified Planks, and nothing else is in the bill. It is CLEAN. Credit goes to each Plank from the recorded vote.

Tainted

At least one provision creates a separate policy outcome. One such provision is enough, no matter how many Planks the bill carries.

Rule gap

The written rules cannot make the call. We publish the facts and the exact point the rules leave open.

The cleanliness rule

A version is CLEAN when every provision is needed to carry out the Plank's single stated outcome. Any provision that creates a separate policy outcome makes the version TAINTED. The determination names that provision and quotes it.

The live-lever rule

Every TAINTED determination lists the clean-path levers that exist in that chamber at that moment. The list can include a strip motion, division, a discharge petition, a clean reintroduction, and cloture on a clean companion bill. Members are graded only on levers on the list. No one is graded on a lever the rules did not offer.

The 30 session-day clock

A TAINTED determination starts a clock. Signers are expected to sponsor or co-sponsor a clean vehicle within 30 session days of the relevant chamber. The count starts the day the determination is published.

A session day is a calendar day on which that chamber convenes.

When signers hold the majority and the gavel, and still no clean vehicle appears after the clock runs out, we publish that as a collective failure. The more power a group holds, the weaker a claim of helplessness becomes.

The mootness rule and the Achievement Test

A TAINTED bill can still become law. If the law carries the substance of a Plank and passes the Achievement Test below, the Plank's status becomes ACHIEVED IN LAW. Three things follow:

• Nobody gets Passage credit.
• Floor votes and verdicts stand as recorded.
• The Plank moves to compliance monitoring.

To be ACHIEVED, the enacted text must meet the Plank's stated outcome and mechanism. We judge that under the exact-mechanism rule. Partial enactment does not achieve a Plank. A purchase ban does not achieve a Plank that demands a trading ban. The Plank stays on the list, we name the gap, and grading continues.

Consensus riders are still riders

A rider that polls at consensus is still a rider. The guidance is to strip it and send it through the nomination process. Nothing becomes a Plank outside a Review Window.

Full transparency. No appeals body.

Every determination publishes three things: the rule citation, the quoted provision, and the version history. A determination changes only when the criteria change. It never changes case by case.

There is no appeals body. An appeals body is a place where a person decides by judgment. This system has no such place.

The Gap Protocol

We judge rules, never cases, so a call the written rules cannot make is published as RULE GAP with the exact ambiguity named, and no member is graded adversely under it while it is open. The fix is a criteria amendment in the revision ledger, and vehicle status then resolves retroactively because status is a fact about text. Member grading under the new rule applies only going forward, because no one is graded against a rule that did not exist when they acted.

How a determination reads