Glossary
The terms on this site, in plain English.
- SI
- Superintelligence-assisted. Software reads public records and drafts analysis, and the Constitution sets the terms. SI output is published after automated checks and is not individually reviewed by a person.
- VFA SI Solution
- A drafted alternative to one official action. For a bill: a bipartisan working alternative within Congress’s enumerated powers. For an executive action: whether it fits the President’s Article II authority, and the statute or corrected order that would. For a Supreme Court opinion: a textualist re-decision.
- Founders’ Verdict
- A simulated debate about a bill among four voices modeled on Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall, each citing the Constitution, followed by a neutral synthesis: Constitutional, Unconstitutional or Conditional. It is SI analysis, not a statement by any real person.
- Framers’ confidence
- A number from 0 to 1 showing how much the four voices in a Founders’ Verdict agree. 1.0 means all four agree. It is not a probability that the verdict is legally correct.
- Archived SI output
- Machine-generated items published under earlier versions of our process. They are kept on the record with this label instead of being deleted.
- Constitution citation gate
- An automated check every SI output must pass: it must cite at least one real, specific provision of the Constitution (for example, Article I, Section 8, or the Fourteenth Amendment) and may not cite one that does not exist.
- SI Think Tank
- Broader proposals built from principles shared across published Solutions. Each quotes its sources word for word and shows whether they are still current. Signed-in readers can upvote or downvote.
- Textualist re-decision
- A Solution for a Supreme Court case that reasons from the words of the Constitution and the statute at issue, as originally understood, to show how the case would come out on that basis.
- Constitutional grade
- A letter grade from A to F from five checks: enumerated powers, the Bill of Rights, individual liberty, decentralization, and due process and takings.
- Enumerated powers
- The specific powers the Constitution grants the federal government, most of them listed for Congress in Article I, Section 8. Powers not delegated are reserved to the states or the people (Tenth Amendment).
- DW-NOMINATE
- A widely used political-science method, published by Voteview, that places each member of Congress on ideological scales estimated from their roll-call votes. The first dimension roughly tracks liberal to conservative.
- Bioguide ID
- The unique identifier the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress assigns to each member, used to match the same person across official data sources.
- Roll-call vote
- A recorded vote in the House or Senate in which each member’s yea, nay or non-vote is published by name.
- Congressional Record
- The official daily record of proceedings and floor remarks in Congress, published by the Government Publishing Office through GovInfo.
- Federal Register
- The federal government’s official daily journal, where executive orders, presidential memoranda, proclamations and agency rules are published.
- Executive Order
- A written directive signed by the President to manage operations of the federal government, numbered and published in the Federal Register.
- STOCK Act
- A 2012 law that bars members of Congress from trading on nonpublic information learned in their jobs and requires them to report covered stock trades promptly, generally within 45 days.
- PTR (periodic transaction report)
- The form members use to report individual stock trades under the STOCK Act. We use House PTRs to measure how promptly trades are disclosed.
- LDA (Lobbying Disclosure Act)
- The federal law that requires lobbyists to register and file regular reports on their clients, issues and the bills they lobbied on. Filings are public at lda.gov.
- FEC Schedule A
- The part of a campaign’s Federal Election Commission report that itemizes money received. We show only committees and organizations, never private individuals.
- Data Coverage Panel
- The panel on every member profile showing which public-record sources are connected for that member. Below 60% coverage, the profile shows a caveat.
- Composite accountability score
- A 0–100 score from public records: disclosure timeliness, statement–vote consistency, roll-call participation and ethics record. Missing data is left out, never counted against anyone.