How Our Scorecard Powers Idaho Freedom Foundation’s Success

The Problem

The Idaho Freedom Foundation is a small organization on an important mission: educate legislators on the potential impact of the bills that have been introduced and hold them accountable to vote for policy outcomes good for all Idahoans.

Bills can be complex and legislators are subject to many disparate, and often conflicting, influences. How could IFF hope to keep track of everything while also gaining the ear – and the trust – of legislators, year after year?

Consider how many bills and votes we are talking about:

The vast amount of bills to review and votes to track made it necessary to look for a quick, simple way of keeping up with legislative activity, which is especially essential within a small organization. According to Dustin Hurst, Communication Director for IFF, “We needed a solution that was automated, easy-to-use, and functional, with the capacity to present legislative updates in a user-friendly way.”

Solution

That solution was a BillTrack50 scorecard.

Definition: A legislative scorecard rates legislators based on various criteria, traditionally with a letter grade or percentage score. The BillTrack50 scorecard calculates a score for each legislator based purely on votes and bill sponsorship. The score is the sum of all of the votes a legislator makes on key bills, weighted by the importance of the bill. Voting the right way adds the legislator’s score, voting the wrong way subtracts from the legislator’s score. Extra points can be awarded or subtracted based on bill sponsorship. In this way the BillTrack50 scorecard is just the facts, a reflection of a legislator’s actual votes. Each score can be clicked on to see all of the votes that contributed to the final number.

“In 2012 we came to the realization that there was no good way to reliably understand the impact each legislator had on good government practices,” explains Hurst. “We needed an easy-to-understand guide to legislators’ votes, so we sought to build a scorecard that would tell the story of what actually happens in the Idaho Statehouse.”

“We found BillTrack50 to host our scorecard with information we thought was essential to government officials and citizens alike here in Idaho,” says Hurst.

"As a small staff, we don’t have a lot of time to hunt down bills, hunt down links, keep up with votes, and so on. All that information is easily available in the BillTrack50 system. The interface is so incredibly user-friendly, it means the world to a small organization like ours."

Results

Since 2012, IFF analysts have reviewed and scored hundreds of bills based on 12 consistent metrics. Those analyses offer a different point of view than what lawmakers hear from lobbyists and special interests in the Capitol. The scores and analyses are made available to legislators and the public alike on the Idaho Freedom Index scorecard.

Two versions of the IFF Freedom Index Scorecard

1. Friendly display version for citizens
2. Data heavy version for internal use, legislative staff, and citizen wonks

“The scores matter a lot, but it’s more than that,” says Hurst, “It’s been an interesting evolution over the past few couple years, making the scorecard not only credible, but actionable. Days before a bill is voted on, lawmakers, lobbyists and stakeholders will access the scorecard to see our bill rating, and the scorecard has impact on all of them.”

• Negative ratings have prompted stakeholders to reach out and ask: how can we work together to make the best bill possible?
• Representatives value their ranking and strive to keep a high percentage score. “People are concerned about their scores because we do a very good job of publicizing it to the voters and they care a lot. We don’t just change scores when they call; we encourage legislators to improve their score by voting better” explains Hurst. One lawmaker did just that. After hearing from his constituents, he turned his low score in one session to a high score the next session, and kept it there.
• Lawmakers that have a small staff look at the ratings too. They don’t always have staff members to help them review the bills and really understand the policy ramifications so the IFF scorecard is a valuable resource for them. Even if they don’t agree with IFF’s point of view completely, they still consider it to be an important data point. The analyses and scores become part of the educational process, which IFF considers a success.

“BillTrack50 gives us the tools we need to be a powerhouse in Idaho’s political arena. It makes us more effective in communicating the ideas of freedom to people who need and want to hear them,” continues Hurst. “It gives us the technological edge that we need to better inform constituents and lawmakers alike.”

“We couldn’t be any more pleased,” concludes Hurst. “The scorecard has a better impact than we could’ve ever dreamed when we first started doing it by hand 12 years ago.”