The RI Rank project began with a simple mission: to enforce accountability of our elected officials by providing information about their votes and outreach that is easy to understand and act on. For our inaugural rankings, we chose three organizations with a long, non-partisan history of fighting for the public good. Our Civil Rights Voting Record metric is based entirely on a legislator's votes in comparison to the RI ACLU's position. This metric makes up the largest portion of each member's score (30%) because civil rights are a critical component of our lives - dictating our freedoms and liberties as RI residents. We also gave this metric extra weight because of the substantial number of bills that fell under this umbrella, giving us a comprehensive sample size. The Open Government Voting Record metric is based on the legislator's votes in comparison to RI Common Cause's position on bills related to government transparency, ethics, and voting. Lastly, our Environmental Voting Record metric rates legislators based on their votes as they compared to the Environmental Council of RI's position. This metric had the smallest sample size due to leadership preventing most environmental bills from coming to a vote. As a result, this metric represents just 10% of the legislator's overall score. Some legislators were prevented from voting on any environmental bills at all, and this metric was not included in their overall score.

When we surveyed voters throughout Rhode Island, we asked how important constituent outreach was to them. Specifically, we asked how important it was that their state representatives and senators held town hall meetings or coffee hours regularly to give voters an opportunity to question them on bills, give feedback, and get to know them. We also asked about the importance of being able to reach out and receive a response via social media. An overwhelming number of respondents considered this to be of extreme importance. To reflect this, the two metrics used to define constituent outreach make up 40% of the legislator's score. Social Media Outreach measures how well they communicate with constituents on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. While Town Hall Meetings surveyed how often and how many open, public group meetings the legislator had with voters in 2019. 

Our rankings do not measure every aspect and every category of bill the General Assembly votes on, but we feel strongly that the metrics we utilized paint a clear and accurate picture of the legislator's work towards enacting laws that benefit the public good and staying in tune with their constituents.

RI Rank is the culmination of years of work developing a system that easily and quickly defines legislators to their voters. Our utmost goal is to improve the quality of the General Assembly - pushing legislators to better understand the bills they vote on and keep in better touch with constituents. Though we are owned by the same organization as the progressive news website Uprise RI, we strive each and every day to ensure our rankings are accurate and free of bias towards any ideology or party. In fact, we do not show a legislator's party affiliation at all - we are here to help make every legislator better, and prop up those that are doing a great job, regardless of their political party. Our rankings are not based on opinion, but rather the actual actions of each legislator. The information we're presenting here has always been publicly available, but now all of it  - including helpful contact links - has been compiled and presented in a single place. We know this is just the start and there is plenty of room for improvement. But we are excited to provide this information to voters so they will have the facts they need to determine whether their state senator or representative should be re-elected or replaced.

10/5/20 - The "PR" column has changed to "GO" and indicates how many opponents the incumbent has in this year's general election.
9/9/20 - Legislators who did not run for re-election or lost their primary now have their name struck through. The "PO" column has changed to "PR" and now indicates if the incumbent won or lost their primary.
7/23/20 - Added new column "PO" indicating how many opponents the incumbent has in this year's primary. If the incumbent is not running, this is the number of total candidates for the party nomination in that district. Asterisks have been added next to the names of incumbents who are not running for reelection.
6/24/20 - Added asterisks next to scores that are based on a very low number of votes.

Score is the cumulative total of the legislator's scores in all metrics divided by their scoring weight. Voting records represent 60% of their total score and are broken down as follows - Civil Rights Voting Record: 30%, Open Government Voting Record: 20%, Environmental Voting Record: 10%. Constituent outreach represents 40% of their total score with both Social Media Outreach and Town Hall Meetings counting for 20% each.

Civil Rights Voting Record is the cumulative total of the legislator's floor and committee votes that supported the ACLU position divided by the total number of votes the Senator could have participated in (committee votes were only counted if the Senator was present for the vote), calculated as a percentage (0-100). Source: ACLU 2018 Legislative Report Card, 2019 Lobbying Summary.

Open Government Voting Record is the cumulative total of the legislator's floor and committee votes that supported the Common Cause position divided by the total number of votes the Senator could have participated in (committee votes were only counted if the Senator was present for the vote), calculated as a percentage (0-100). Source: Common Cause 2018 Scorecard, 2019 official lobbying report.

Environmental Voting Record is the cumulative total of the legislator's floor and committee votes that supported the Environmental Council of RI position divided by the total number of votes the Senator could have participated in (committee votes were only counted if the Senator was present for the vote), calculated as a percentage (0-100). Source: Environmental Council of RI 2018 and 2019 Legislative Agenda.

Social Media Outreach is the cumulative average of points awarded, scaled to 100. Legislators received 1 point for having a political page on Facebook, 1 point for having a profile on Twitter, 3 points if they actively post to Facebook, 3 points if they actively do so to Twitter, 5 points if they have received and responded to applicable comments on their posts on Facebook, 5 points for accomplishing the same on Twitter, and 1 point if the member has an active website with either proper email contact information shown or at minimum a working email form. Source: Legislator Facebook pages and Twitter profiles.

Town Hall Meetings is scored based on a range of the number of reported and verified public, open group meetings that the legislator held with constituents in 2019. A legislator received 20 points for holding 1-3 meetings, 50 points for 4-5 meetings, 75 points for 6-8 meetings, and a perfect score of 100 points for 9 or more meetings in the year. Source: Self-reported by legislators, verified by RI Rank.

Election Strength is informational only and plays no part in the overall score. This metric measures how competitive a legislator's past elections (2014-2018) have been and their margin of victory when opposed. Higher numbers indicate greater margins of victory, especially in recent races. Lower scores indicate uncontested elections and/or low margins of victory.

General Election Opponent is informational only and plays no part in the overall score. This indicates how many opponents the incumbent has in this year's general election.

* Indicates that the score is based on a very low number of votes - below the minimum number of votes required to be scored on the segment-specific rankings.