Tip: This post assumes you know how to make your own Bill Track 50 scorecard. If aren’t familiar with creating legislative scorecards already, we suggest reading that post first.
One of our popular features is our legislative scorecard, which enables organizations to score bills going through the legislative process. You are able to embed this scorecard into your website or link directly to it.
If you use WordPress, you may want to consider integrating the separate Legislative Scorecard WordPress Plugin, to get the following additional features:
- Find Your Legislator by Address
- Click-to-email or click-to-call legislators directly from your website
- Auto-updates from your Bill Track 50 scorecard
- Auto-populates official legislator headshots
- Ability to customize colors to match your website
- Ability to customize the banner image
- Members-only feature to encourage memberships with your organization (optional)
WordPress plugin in-use
How The WordPress Plugin Works
for Organizations
The WordPress plugin connects to Bill Track 50, pulls in your scorecard info (bills, scores, comments, and legislators), and displays this on your website. It auto-populates everything, including official legislator headshots, to make this as seamless as possible. Your typical workflow would be:
- You use Bill Track 50’s scorecard tool to choose a set of bills and score them. Learn how to set up a scorecard.
- Bill Track 50 takes care of totaling your scores for each scorecard, tracks how legislators are voting, and scores them based on your scores for each bill.
- You install the plugin, which connects to the Bill Track 50 scorecard of your choice and pulls in that data.
- Your scorecard data is displayed on your website, just like you see in our legislative scorecard demo.
- Whenever you update your Bill Track 50 scorecard, the plugin takes care of pulling in that updated data into your website.
for Your Website Visitors
The scorecard is designed to be intuitive and meaningful for users at a glance. A typical user may:
- Visit your scorecard on your website to follow up with the latest bills and legislator votes.
- Use the Find Your Legislator by Address feature to search for the legislators that represent them.
- Click Voting Record to visit a specific legislator’s page (example) to find the latest voting metrics, your organizations scores for each bill, and the legislator’s contact info.
- Contact the legislator to voice their opinion on a bill using the easy click-to-email and click-to-call links provided on that specific legislator page.
Plugin Instructions
To install: Add a WordPress Plugin using the built-in plugin installer.
- Go to Plugins > Add New.
- Click the Upload button
- The resulting installation screen will list the installation as successful or note any problems during the install.
- If successful, click Activate Plugin to activate it.
To customize: Log into your WordPress website.
- Go to Settings > BillTrack50 Scorecard
- Customize the following fields (see image below):
- BT50 API Key: Paste in your Bill Track 50 API key. If you do not have one, contact us.
- Select a Scorecard: This will default to the first plugin it finds in your Bill Track 50 account. You can select the field to change which scorecard is displayed. (You need to go set up a scorecard on your Bill Track 50 account for this field to populate.)
- Primary color: This color will be used as the background of legislator names on scorecards.
- Secondary color: This color displays as your links.
- Header Image: Upload an image that displays behind both the search for legislator by address field and behind individual legislators on their detail pages.
- Main Header Jumbotron: This is your page title.
- Main Subtitle Jumbotron: This is the paragraph text that displays under your page title.
- Info section: Displays in the sidebar. Is used to explain your values and scoring system.
- Save
- Paste the following shortcode into any page with a full-width template.
[bt50-scorecard]
Legislative Scorecard Settings
Purchasing and Support
General FAQs can be found at https://legislativescorecard.us/support/.
To purchase, you’re welcome to bundle this plugin with your Bill Track 50 account by contacting Karen at Contact.
Or you can purchase it directly from its developers and contact Breahna at support@legislativescorecard.us or (720) 515-8498 for your license key.
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.