Everybody enjoys a good political scorecard; BillTrack50 makes it easy to create your own. Simply rate bills important to you, and then we add up how everyone voted to show you which legislators are helping or hurting your cause. Scorecards are also a quick way to review how an individual legislator voted on all of the bills most important to you. You can keep the scorecard information private, or make it public, depending on your goals. Scorecards are easy to create and we keep them automatically updated for you. We also give you several ways to customize the scorecard and fine tune the scoring, to make sure you’re getting (and sharing) the information just how you want to.
This webinar was a 45-minute lesson on legislator scorecards, covering both basic and advanced topics. Webinar embedded below, or go to YouTube to view: https://youtu.be/EpQSsyOutSA
Table of Contents:
1:05 Basics – What is a scorecard? What do the best scorecards have?
(Virginia Chapter of Sierra Club example)
3:20 Seeing a scorecard embedded on a site to see a great example of what the “end game” is when making a scorecard with BillTrack50.
Briefly going through the features available when a BillTrack50 scorecard is embedded on a website (interactive, clickable features).
(Better Idaho example)
5:30 Talking about breaking scorecards down by subject – making it more engaging to your network and stakeholders.
6:20 Talking about the specifics of embedding the scorecard on your site and having different tabs come up by default (having the district map show up first and then allowing people to click on other tabs after that).
7:30 Is this lobbying? If you are a non-profit can you use this on your site? Explanation of Learn Foundation’s guide to what is allowed by the IRS and what is not. What to stay away from and what the line to not cross is if you are a 501(c)(3).
11:00 Getting ready – how to format your bill sheet can help you with your scorecard down the road.
14:00 Begin making the scorecard, general setup (choosing bill sheet, setting up logo, title, etc).
16:00 Scoring bills. Default scores created from positions indicated on bill sheet, then tweak rating for specific bills.
19:15 How to add extra details to adjust and clarify the overall legislator scores (sponsor ratings, changing bill titles, comments, etc.)
21:30 Diving down into the weeds about which votes are used to calculate the score and how you can override our defaults depending what you care about. You can score individual amendment votes or change the score for votes to kill the bill, for example.
26:00 How to add bills to your bill sheet and keep it up to date if you create your scorecard before the session is over
28:00 The ways to use scorecards internally (advocacy days, grassroots, looking up a legislator’s votes, etc.)
30:30 How to customize your sheet (change title, picture, sorting, access for people within your organization)
33:30 Bill Catagories how to make them and assign them to your bills.
35:30 Score settings (absent or abstaining votes)
38:30 Excluding out of office legislators
39:45 How to make a scorecard public and share it. By default scorecards are private and you need must grant specific permission for people to be able to view it.
40:00 General use for scorecards for organizations and how they can influence your initiatives.
(Q&A)
41:50 Recommendation for the amount of information in comment boxes to clarify positions, if you have a lot to say, the other options.
43:30 Talking about the time expected to make a complete scorecard and other methods for importing information if you are creating a large or especially detailed scorecard.
45:50 Showing the new WordPress plugin for embedding a scorecard on your site and having it completely interactive. Check it out here: https://legislativescorecard.us/demo/ or read this blog for instructions on setting up the new scorecard: https://www.billtrack50.com/blog/tips-and-tricks/how-to/legislative-scorecard-to-wordpress-integration/
About BillTrack50 – BillTrack50 is a user friendly free service that provides legislation research in all 50 states and federally. BillTrack50 also offers legislation and regulation tracking across the nation with tools to help organization stay on top of changes (bill sheets and alerts) and share legislation they are tracking with key stakeholders (legislator scorecards, widgets and stakeholder pages). If you are interested in learning more about how BillTrack50 saves organizations time and money, sign up for a demo and try it out BillTrack50 Pro for a month, for free.