Researching Legislators

• Introduction
• Video
• Where to Find Legislators
• Performing Research
• 1-Pager

Introduction

Odds are, you know which federal legislators your organization has worked with in the past.  You may have covered a region and know which state delegates are particularly influential in a few Issues you monitor.  Or, maybe you know which legislator in particular you need to find contact information for to perform outreach.  Regardless of the reason, FiscalNote makes it easy to find their profiles and organize your legislator stakeholders.  

Video

Where to Find Legislators

There are 2 locations in FiscalNote that allow for browsing legislators: (1) The Directory, and (2) The Search bar. 

The Directory hosts the market's largest repository of government contacts, and can be accessed under Contacts from the collapsible menu on the left:

Because the Directory contains both legislators and government contacts such as agency executives, state governors, and more, we typically recommend using the Search bar when browsing for specifically for legislators. 

For more tips on using the Directory, click here.  

If you know exactly which Legislator you need to find, click the white space in the Search bar and type their name after choosing the level from the pop-up menu, State or Federal.  As a best practice, we recommend searching by last name to help ensure you've captured the match: 

If this legislator is an influencer for an Issue you monitor, add them to the Issue for future reference:

Performing Research

When you don't know the name of an individual or group of legislators that you need to research, perform what we call an Empty Search.  Click the white space in the Search bar, choose the level, State or Federal, and click Search:

FiscalNote automatically shows all active matches.  Use the Legislature, Chamber, Party, Status, and Effectiveness Filters on the left to find more accurate results. 

For example, if you just started working at a vehicle safety organization in Maryland, you may want to find out who the best Delegates to partner with are.  First, choose Maryland from the Legislature filter, and House from the Chamber filter:

Next, use the effectiveness rating to find legislators that might be particularly skilled at passing legislation.  For this example, we'll choose Transportation:

The Effectiveness rating based on a unique and complex algorithm developed by the FiscalNote data science team.  There are 3 main pillars that determine an effectiveness rating:

• Historical by nature:  Based on performance of previously sponsored and cosponsored legislation
• Tiered by progress:  The further the sponsored legislation moves through the legislative process, the higher the effectiveness rating
• Weighted by volume:  Credit is given to more work done. Ex: 50% passage of 200 bills is harder to accomplish than 50% passage of 2 bills.  The legislator who sponsors 200 bills would receive a higher rating in this instance.

Even if not browsing for effective legislators by a particular topic, FiscalNote allows you to view them in order by effectiveness with the drop-down menu on the top-right of the page:

If any legislators are identified as stakeholders, add them to your Issue(s) as seen above.

1-Pager (Click here to download)