How often does ThePolitibase update?

Member rosters refresh every 6 hours. Floor votes refresh every 30 minutes. Bills cache for 1 hour. Campaign finance data refreshes daily.

Why does a 55-45 cloture vote show as failed?

Cloture motions need 60 yeas to invoke, regardless of the nay count. A 55-45 cloture vote did not invoke cloture even though more senators voted yes than no.

Where do policy area assignments come from?

Policy areas are assigned by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the nonpartisan research arm of the Library of Congress. We display them as-is.

Methodology - The Politibase

This page explains how ThePolitibase aggregates, processes, and displays congressional data. We document our methodology so you can evaluate our work and so journalists citing us can understand the underlying mechanics.

Data update frequency

Member roster: Refreshed every 6 hours from Congress.gov + unitedstates.io.
Bills: Refreshed continuously; bill detail pages cache for 1 hour.
Senate floor votes: Pulled directly from senate.gov XML on each request, cached 30 minutes.
House floor votes: Pulled from Congress.gov + clerk.house.gov XML, cached 30 minutes.
Campaign finance: Refreshed daily from OpenFEC.
Policy area / legislative subjects: Refreshed weekly per bill (CRS doesn’t change these once assigned).

Vote outcome classification

We don’t simply compare yeas to nays. Some votes have higher thresholds:

Cloture motions: Need 60 yeas to pass, regardless of nay count.
Treaty ratifications and constitutional amendment proposals: Need two-thirds.
Veto overrides: Need two-thirds in each chamber.

When these thresholds aren’t met, we display a clarifying note next to the vote (e.g., “Did not reach 60-vote cloture threshold”).

Vote result text

We use the official Senate and House result strings (“Cloture Invoked,” “Confirmed,” “Motion Rejected,” etc.) when available. We fall back to a tally-based heuristic only when the official result string is missing.

Bill status stages

Bills move through one or more of these stages, in order:

Introduced
In Committee
Out of Committee (reported)
Passed One Chamber
Passed Both Chambers
Awaiting Signature
Signed Into Law (or Vetoed)

We classify the current stage based on the most advanced action recorded in Congress.gov. A vetoed bill does not become law unless the veto is overridden.

Member alignment scores

When we report a member’s “party alignment” percentage, that is the share of recent recorded votes on which they voted with their party majority. We exclude unanimous votes (where alignment is meaningless) and procedural quorum/journal votes.

What we don’t claim

We do not claim to capture every committee meeting, every press release, every speech, or every district event. We track what Congress publishes through its official APIs. If a member claims an action that isn’t in Congress.gov, we don’t show it.

If you find an error or have a methodology question, please report it.