Who's paying your representatives?

Every member of Congress is graded on where their money comes from. Look up your representative to see who's funding them.

534 members graded: S 37, A 69, B 74, C 100, D 111, E 101, F 42.

See every member of Congress · How grades work

Why this matters to all of us

It doesn’t matter who wins if everyone loses.

Money doesn't have to buy a vote to matter. Studies link it to whose wishes become law, who gets a meeting and what members spend their time on.

How wealth influences policy

When the middle class wanted a policy, it had about a 30% chance of becoming law, whether they strongly opposed or strongly supported it. When the wealthy wanted it, the chance rose from about 18% to 45% (Gilens and Page (2014)).

Donors get the meetings

A political group asked 191 congressional offices for meetings. When the office was told the visitors were donors, the member or a top aide was three to four times as likely to meet them.

Donors are linked to what members talk about

Over 24 years in the House, the groups that paid a member were a better guide to what that member talked about than their party, home state or committees.

Money from a few big donors is linked to less work

Members who relied more on their biggest donors put forward fewer bills, gave fewer speeches and spoke at fewer hearings, especially on health and welfare. That's why the grade checks how few donors gave half the big money.

  1. Gilens and Page (2014), Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens. Perspectives on Politics 12(3). 1,779 policy questions, 1981 to 2002. Enns (2015) points out that the richest and everyone else usually want the same things.
  2. Kalla and Broockman (2016), Campaign Contributions Facilitate Access to Congressional Officials: A Randomized Field Experiment. American Journal of Political Science 60(3). Real meeting requests to 191 offices. A 2023 survey asking congressional staff about made-up requests found no difference (Furnas and others).
  3. Goel, Malkin, Gaynor, Jojic, Miler and Resnik (2023), Donor activity is associated with US legislators' attention to political issues. PLOS ONE 18(9). Every member of the House, 1995 to 2018.
  4. Parmigiani (2025), Campaign contributions and legislative behavior: Evidence from U.S. Congress. Journal of Public Economics 243. Congress, 1980 to 2014.