Methodology · Version 1.5 scoring

How LegisRate works

The score

bill factor total = reach + fiscal scale + legal durability + institutional scope

councilmember points = (bill factor total + sponsorship timing point) × final sponsor share

Each factor receives 0, 1, or 2 points. The four factors distinguish narrower actions from legislation with broader reach, larger fiscal effects, more durable law, or wider institutional responsibility. Timing changes only the single sponsorship point; it never discounts the four bill factors.

Where legislation starts—and what sponsorship means

The large department share is real, but it needs context. Of the 3416 scored matters in this 2015–2026 record, 686 are Council-origin, 1671 identify an executive department as their source, and 1059 have unclear origin. That does not mean councilmembers worked on only the Council-origin measures. It means Seattle's official Summary and Fiscal Note identifies a department—not a person—as the institutional source for most of the legislation that reached Council.

Seattle legislation can be initiated by the Council, Mayor and executive departments, Municipal Court, or City Attorney; members of the public can also suggest legislation. The official process then moves an idea through several distinct roles:

1. 1
   Initiate and draft

   A Council office or another City branch develops a proposal. The Law Department reviews legislation, and a Summary and Fiscal Note records its purpose, financial effects, and originating department. Council Central Staff may research policy, analyze fiscal effects, and draft legislation or amendments for councilmembers.

2. 2
   Sponsor and introduce

   The Council President assigns a proposal to a committee, and the committee chair controls when it is placed on the Introduction and Referral Calendar. Seattle defines a sponsor as a councilmember who agrees to consider a legislative item. Current rules also allow the originator to be listed as “Executive Requested” or “[Department] Requested Legislation.”

3. 3
   Work in committee

   Councilmembers can question presenters, request research, hear public comment, negotiate changes, propose amendments, hold the item, or recommend it to the Full Council. This is often where substantive Council work happens, regardless of origin.

4. 4
   Act as the Full Council

   All councilmembers may debate, amend, send an item back to committee, hold it, and cast the final vote. Sponsorship is therefore only one role in the legislative process.

5. 5
   Send ordinances to the Mayor

   After Council passage, the Mayor may sign an ordinance, allow it to become law without a signature, or veto it. The Council may override a veto with enough votes.

Official process references: City Clerk: How a Bill Becomes a Law, City Clerk: Legislative Glossary, 2026 Council Rules, and Council Central Staff.

Which bills create member points

Successful eligible legislation creates member points when the official record names a usable individual Council sponsor. This includes Council-origin, department-origin, and unclear-origin measures. Origin remains a filter and audit field because it explains where the proposal began, but it is not a personal-credit gate. A committee-only label creates no individual allocation, and excluded, pending, failed, or withdrawn matters create no points.

Who receives the points

LegisRate uses the final complete official sponsor list so later official co-sponsors can appear in the score. A solo prime sponsor receives 100%. With co-sponsors, the prime sponsor receives 60% and all co-sponsors divide 40%. When an official SLI lists sponsors without a prime sponsor, they share equally. Historical SLI sheets that explicitly distinguish a primary sponsor from named councilmembers use the same 60/40 rule. A committee-only sponsor label creates no individual credit.

The bill factors are fully divided using that sponsor share. Only the one-point sponsorship component changes with timing:

• 1 point — early/original sponsor: present by the committee recommendation. For legislation sent directly to Full Council, the introduction record is the cutoff.
• 0.5 point — post-committee sponsor: first appears after the committee recommendation but no later than the Full Council passage version.
• 0.25 point — post-passage association: first appears only in a later signed or enacted version. Because Council rules allow co-sponsors to be added only before final passage, this is deliberately the weakest formal-record tier.

LegisRate compares the sponsor's first official version with the matter's action history. A Clerk database timestamp alone does not determine the tier because a sponsorship approved in an open meeting may be entered afterward. Any later-added sponsor without an audited timing decision stops the build rather than being guessed.

Profile activity metrics

The profile's activity panel is context, not another score. Sponsored outcomes use the same eligible official sponsor record as the scoring system. Passage rate is successful measures divided by all decided measures; pending legislation is displayed separately and excluded from the denominator. “Unsuccessful” combines failed, withdrawn, and vetoed measures.

Voting choices use the latest structured legislative vote for each eligible matter, preferring a Full Council vote when one exists. In favor, opposed, and abstained are separate categories. Not voting and disqualification remain separate, and a matter with no structured tally is never treated as a member absence. A tally is “contested” when at least one member records opposition or an abstention. Across this 2015–2026 record, 2904 of 3109 eligible final tallies—93.4%—had neither; 205 were contested. Attendance uses Full Council attendance records only and shows present, late, excused, and unexcused statuses separately. None of these figures changes LegisRate points.

Machine scoring

The working pipeline reads official structured records and available legislation, fiscal notes, reports, and attachments. It applies deterministic eligibility and sponsor rules, then uses a machine classifier to assign the four factor values, write a rationale, and place each matter in one primary policy area with up to three secondary tags. Missing factor evidence is surfaced in the bill audit so the scoring rule can be improved without hiding the underlying record.

The scoring model is developed through visible bill-level review: errors in a factor, topic, sponsor split, or source link can be traced to a single matter and corrected in a later version. Frozen historical review and validation files are preserved rather than rewritten.

Policy areas and tags

Every bill receives one primary policy area so the points on a councilmember chart add back to the overall score. Optional secondary tags help people filter across related subjects. Topics never add points, multiply points, or remove a bill.

What enters the record

Eligible successful records include Council Bills or ordinances, resolutions, Council Budget Actions, Statements of Legislative Intent, and standalone structured adopted amendments with a sponsor and outcome. Failed or withdrawn measures receive zero points. Procedural containers, appointments, proclamations, minutes, recurring administrative records, and other defined exclusions do not create points.

The 2015–2022 backfill includes the primary legislation record—Council Bills or ordinances, resolutions, and adopted SLIs—but holds standalone historical Council Budget Action sheets outside the public score. Those sheets remain preserved as audit inventories. This keeps the twelve-year comparison from adding a separate archival unit in only the years where that unit was collected; it does not mean the underlying budget work did not occur.

How to read the result

LegisRate describes successful sponsored legislative output and its scored significance. It does not decide whether a policy is ideologically good or bad. Institutional origin and sponsorship are not proof that one person drafted every part of a measure. Committee questioning, negotiation, amendments, coalition-building, and votes can be consequential work, but V1 does not turn those activities into points unless they appear in an eligible official record. Committee positions, attendance, and vote tallies are shown as context and do not add points.