How Mandate works.

Each bill that reaches the House or Senate floor goes through a multi-stage analysis pipeline:

1. Plain-language translation. The bill text is rewritten at an 8th-grade reading level. Jargon and legal references are replaced by their effects on the people they touch.
2. Equal-weight perspectives. Every summary includes the strongest case FOR the bill and the strongest case AGAINST it, written at equal length and equal tone. The arguments come from supporter and opponent positions already on record — not generated as opinion.
3. Impact scoring. A score from 1 to 10 estimates how many people the bill would meaningfully affect if passed. The score measures scope of effect, not whether the bill is good or bad.
4. Constitutional context. Where relevant, the analysis notes which enumerated power Congress is exercising and any historical precedent for similar legislation.
5. Neutrality audit. Before publication, the analysis is cross-checked against a separate set of rules that flag loaded language, asymmetric framing, and length imbalance between supporter and opponent arguments. Anything that fails the audit is rewritten.

What the analysis does not do.

• Editorialize. We do not say a bill is good or bad.
• Predict outcomes. We do not forecast votes or political consequences.
• Recommend positions. We tell you what the bill does and who it affects. You decide what to think.

Mandate Score measures your representatives' engagement with the issues you care about. It does not measure their alignment with any party, ideology, or position.

The score has three components:

• Category engagement. Of the bills introduced in the categories you've selected, how many did your rep cast a vote on? This is the central measure.
• Missed votes. The percentage of floor votes your rep did not cast a position on. A high number doesn't necessarily mean negligence — there are legitimate reasons — but the data shows the pattern.
• Independent voting. The percentage of votes where your rep broke from their party's majority position. The number is descriptive. Some voters want lockstep loyalty; others want independent judgment. What you do with the number is your call.

The score is descriptive, not prescriptive. A rep with a high engagement score isn't "better" than one with a low score — they're more present. A rep who votes against their party often isn't "better" than one who doesn't — they're more independent. What "better" means is your call, not ours.

The Context tab surfaces news articles related to bills and issues in your feed. These articles come from across the political spectrum. Every source is labeled with two independent ratings:

• AllSides — uses blind bias surveys, editorial review, and third-party audit to place sources on a left-to-right scale. Mandate uses this to show partisan lean.
• Media Bias/Fact Check — adds factual reporting standards, sourcing transparency, and correction history. Mandate uses this to flag sources with poor reliability regardless of where they fall politically.

How we use the ratings:

We do not filter sources by political bias. A reader doesn't need us to gatekeep what's worth reading. We show the ratings so you can weigh what you're reading.

What we do filter: sources with confirmed records of fabricated reporting, undisclosed foreign-government funding, or repeated publication of debunked material. Both partner organizations maintain those lists. We follow them.

The bias categorizations and their definitions are AllSides' and Media Bias/Fact Check's. Mandate has no proprietary bias methodology and no ambition to develop one.

Mandate pulls from primary government sources first and reputable aggregators where the primary source isn't accessible. We do not invent data, scrape pundits, or rely on opinion sites.

All data is fetched directly from the source's official API or feed. Mandate does not republish bill text or articles — we link to the original.