What the labels mean

Bills and members carry short labels — text replaced, crossed the floor — flagging something in the official record worth a second look. Each one is arithmetic on published data, and each one is set to fire when the thing stops being routine rather than when it starts being true. A label that appears on half the feed teaches people to stop seeing it, and then it's worth less than nothing.

Every test is below. If one of them looks wrong to you, it probably is — tell us and we'll publish the correction.

On a bill

• text replaced

  The bill passed one chamber, crossed to the other, and had its text struck out and replaced with different legislation. The number stayed the same.

  The test. The name the bill passed under differs from the name the other chamber sent back, comparing the titles GovInfo records against each printed version of the text.

  What it doesn't claim. It isn't an accusation. Substituting a bill's text is legal and sometimes constitutionally necessary — the Senate can't originate a revenue bill, so it has no other way to write tax law. What's flagged is that the record reads as continuous when it isn't.

• one-vote margin

  The vote that settled the bill was close enough that a handful of members could have changed the outcome.

  The test. Three members or fewer voting the other way would have flipped the result — a margin of five or less. Each switched vote moves the margin by two, so a margin of five ties at three switches. A tie counts, because in the Senate the Vice President breaks it.

  What it doesn't claim. It doesn't account for votes needing two thirds. A bill failing suspension of the rules at 60% was close to its own threshold and won't be flagged here, because the required threshold isn't recorded reliably in the source data.

• crossed party lines

  Both parties' majorities voted the same way on a question that a substantial number of members opposed.

  The test. The Democratic and Republican majorities landed on the same side, and the losing side took at least 15% of the votes cast. The second half is what matters: majorities agree on about half of all roll calls, because naming a post office is not a contested question. The 15% floor is what separates agreement from formality.

  What it doesn't claim. It doesn't mean the bill was uncontroversial, and it doesn't mean it was good. It means the usual party division didn't apply to it.

• donors lobbied it

  An organization that gives money to sitting members of Congress has a documented position for or against this bill.

  The test. At least one organization has both a position on this bill stated unambiguously in a lobbying filing, and a federal committee with recorded contributions to a sitting member. Filings that only say an organization 'monitored' a bill don't count — most of them say that, and it isn't a position.

  What it doesn't claim. It is not evidence that the money bought the position, and nothing on this site claims that it is. Organizations overwhelmingly give to people who already agree with them. The alignment is shown; the cause is not asserted.

On a member, next to their vote

• voted against their own cosponsorship

  The member put their name to this bill, then voted against it on the vote that settled it.

  The test. A recorded sponsorship or cosponsorship for the bill, and a Nay on the decisive vote in their own chamber. Both are dated, official acts from the same record — this is the least inferred thing on the site.

  What it doesn't claim. It doesn't say why, and there are honest reasons. A bill can be amended past the point its original backers recognize it — which is exactly what the 'text replaced' label is for. The claim is only that both acts happened.

• crossed the floor

  The member voted the opposite way to the majority of their own party.

  The test. Their recorded position on the decisive vote differs from the side their party's majority took on that same vote.

  What it doesn't claim. Independents never get this label. Several caucus with a party they aren't a member of, so 'their party's majority' has no honest referent, and picking one for them would be an editorial judgement dressed up as arithmetic. Present and Not Voting aren't defections either — abstaining is its own act.

• missed the vote

  The bill's sponsor had no vote recorded on the vote that settled their own bill.

  The test. No MemberVote row for the sponsor on the decisive roll call in their own chamber, or a position of Not Voting. Only claimed when there was a recorded vote in their chamber to miss — a representative isn't absent from a Senate roll call, and a voice vote has no attendance to check.

  What it doesn't claim. 'Present' counts as showing up and isn't flagged. It's a deliberate act with its own meaning, and folding it into absence would describe a decision as a no-show.