Lawmakers increasingly support democracy reforms: Scorecard

The number of lawmakers backing pro-democracy issues, such as voting rights and campaign finance reform, is surging, even as Capitol Hill is mired in partisan gridlock.

Of the 535 members of Congress, 117 lawmakers received perfect scores for their support of “pro-democracy reform bills” and votes, according to the fifth biennial Democracy Scorecard released Monday by the nonprofit government watchdog Common Cause.

That’s a 15.8 percent increase from the 101 perfect scores in 2022 and a more than 100 percent increase from the 58 members with perfect scores in 2020.

“Voters are demanding action on these issues from their members of Congress, and really it’s only in Washington where these issues are considered partisan,” Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, told The Hill in a phone interview.

Key votes and legislation covered by the scorecard include the Freedom to Vote Act, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the DISCLOSE Act, which aims to increase disclosure of so-called “dark money” flowing into elections.

The Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act — a direct response to ProPublica’s bombshell reporting on undisclosed trips Justice Clarence Thomas accepted from various billionaires while on the bench — is among the bills tracked on the scorecard.

The legislation considered included 13 measures in the House and 10 in the Senate.

California has 23 members with perfect scores, the most of any state. All of the California lawmakers who received perfect scores are Democrats.

Rhode Island and Vermont are the only states whose full congressional delegations received perfect scores. Each lawmaker from these states is a Democrat, except for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with the Democrats.

The Wyoming delegation, which is made up of two Republican senators and an at-large GOP representative, is the only state in which each member scored zero.

The number of lawmakers who scored zero was 148, the highest it’s been since Common Cause began the scorecard in 2016.

“There’s definitely some polarization going on,” Scherb said. “We’re seeing a lot less appetite for finding common solutions from the Republican Party, unfortunately, despite the large majorities of Republican, Democratic and independent voters who continue to support these reforms.”

The 118th Congress, which kicked off in January 2023, has been among the least productive in history. 78 bills have become law as of Monday, compared to 365 during the 117th Congress and 344 during the preceding session.

In addition to the usual gridlock of a divided Congress, myriad historic events have eaten up valuable floor time and oxygen, including the 15-round election of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in January 2023 and his ousting just nine months later, the expulsion of Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) last December and the first-ever conviction of conspiracy by a public official, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), to act as a foreign agent that led to his resignation.

Virginia Kase Solomón, president and CEO of Common Cause, wrote in the scorecard introduction that it’s “not surprising” that trust in Congress and the Supreme Court among the American public is low “with such dysfunction.”

Just 20.4 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, according to national polling averages analyzed by FiveThirtyEight, and the Supreme Court approval rating is 36.5 percent.

A majority of Americans across the political spectrum also say they want the president and Congress to prioritize reducing the influence of political spending, a top priority second only to the economy and defending against terrorism, according to a January survey by the Pew Research Center.

In a separate Pew Research study conducted in July 2023, 63 percent of respondents said they believe most or all elected officials ran to “make a lot of money.”

“People are tired of the status quo – the outsized role special interests and secret money play in our elections, Supreme Court Justices who ignore ethical standards, and gerrymandered congressional districts that allow politicians to choose their voters, instead of the other way around,” Solomón said in a press release.