WP Congress: A new legislative scorecard plugin for WordPress

Engage your supporters and empower their activism with the WP Congress WordPress plugin, our brand new legislative scorecard plugin for WordPress sites!

What is a legislative scorecard?

A legislative scorecard is a tool for showing legislators’ voting records. With a ranked list of legislative votes, you can help voters understand where legislators stand on issues that are important to your organization and to your supporters.

Oftentimes, a legislator is assigned a percentage score to show how well they align with your organizations’ voting preferences.

A legislator’s score for their voting record in 2016.

What’s WP Congress?

WP Congress is a plugin that we built as an add-on to WordPress sites. The plugin harnesses the power of the ProPublica Congress API to build legislator scores. Data includes:

  • General biographical information for current and past members of Congress
  • Voting history for members of the House of Representatives and Senate
  • Bill summaries, amendments, and related bills
  • Voting data updates every 30 minutes

Once you’ve configured the WP Congress plugin with the ProPublica API, you can then select which votes you want to record. Next, you’ll import and specify your voting preferences to specify which legislators are most closely aligned with what issues matter to your organization.

Setting your position on a vote with WP Congress.

We built WP Congress for users who want to not just aggregate voting data in a list online but to also display the data within their site’s theme.

Frontend display of legislator search, honor roll, legislator map and vote search shortcodes

WP Congress currently includes the following shortcode display options:

  • A legislator archive to display a full list of all legislators with pagination
  • A legislator honor roll to display legislators with a voting record at or above a set percentage (which you control)
  • A clickable legislator map for state legislative district information
  • Legislator search functionality for finding legislators for a users’ address
  • Vote search to find votes based on criteria

Can I use it?

Yes, you can! Purchase WP Congress for your site today or contact us to learn more!

By

Self-described as a “non-profit junkie,” Sarah has dedicated her career to serving the needs of the non-profit sector. Her project management experience spans a variety of non-profit management disciplines including strategic planning, community engagement, capacity building, fundraising and research. She has worked both in and for the non-profit sector at the Feminist Majority Foundation, the Sadie Nash Leadership Project, and the consulting firms The Lee Institute and The Curtis Group. With her ever expanding non-profit tool belt, Sarah joined Cornershop Creative to tap into her techie, creative side, while developing meaningful partnerships with her clients to help them more effectively achieve their goals. Along with her extensive training in facilitation, Sarah is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati DAAP School where she received a dual bachelors degree in Women’s and Urban Studies, as well as Wake Forest University School of Business’s Nonprofit Management Certification Program. Passionate about civic engagement, Sarah is currently a member of the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center’s Aquarium Connection and the Junior League of Norfolk-Virginia Beach. Sarah and her husband, Bryce, live in Norfolk, VA on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay where she moonlights as a mermaid and raises their daughter, Indigo, and menagerie of animals: their dogs, Daisy and Mokona, and cat, Nestle.