Terms for reusing our data
The data files on this site are free to download and reuse. This page says which parts are our own work and the license they're under, and which parts keep the terms of the source we took them from.
Version 1, in effect since Oct. 14, 2026.
What these terms cover
Every data file this site serves under capitollens.org/data/: the downloads listed on the data page, single votes as JSON (/data/votes/<id>.json), the state legislature files and the dated data versions.
They don't cover the site's pages, text, charts or share images. Those are free to cite and republish with credit, as the page for journalists explains.
Our work: CC BY 4.0
Capitol Lens's own work in these files is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). You may copy, share and adapt it for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you give credit, link to the license and say if you changed it.
Our work is:
- the scores and everything calculated from them: votes with own party, votes with the President, bipartisan bills led and missed votes, with their counts, percentiles, ranks and expected values, for Congress and for each state legislature;
- how we classify votes and bills: the type of each vote, key votes, party-line and procedural flags, and how far each bipartisan bill got;
- the plain-language vote descriptions (drafted and checked with AI);
- the list of the President's positions: which positions count, the status of each and the source we cite for it;
- the choice and arrangement of what goes in each file.
Facts, such as how a member voted, aren't anyone's to own. The license applies to our work only as far as we hold rights in it.
Credit us like this: Data: Capitol Lens (capitollens.org), CC BY 4.0.
Add the data version (the data_version column) so readers can find the same figures, and say so if you changed or combined them.
What keeps its source's terms
Our files also carry material we didn't create. It isn't ours to license: its source's terms apply, and its source should get the credit it asks for.
| Material | Where it appears | Source and terms |
|---|---|---|
| Roll call votes, how each member voted, DW-NOMINATE scores | votes.csv, member-votes.csv, dw_nominate_dim1 in members.csv | Voteview (UCLA). It states no license and asks to be cited; its data page gives the citation. |
| Members' names, IDs, terms of office and contact details | members.csv, members.json, member-votes.csv | unitedstates/congress-legislators, dedicated to the public domain (CC0 1.0). |
| Bills (titles, sponsors, cosponsors, actions), nominations and the President's Statements of Administration Policy | votes.csv, bipartisan-bills.csv, president-positions.csv | Congress.gov, GovInfo and whitehouse.gov: works of the U.S. government, which aren't protected by copyright in the United States (17 U.S.C. § 105). |
| 2024 presidential results by district | pres_2024_margin_trump_minus_harris in members.csv | The Downballot's calculations (© The Downballot, LLC), published with no license for reuse. Ask The Downballot before republishing them. |
| Quotations | quote column in president-positions.csv | The source each row links to. Most are U.S. government documents; a few are quoted from news reports, whose words belong to their publishers. |
| District lines and ZIP code areas | /data/map/, /data/zips/ | U.S. Census Bureau: works of the U.S. government. |
| Candidates on the 2026 ballot | /data/candidates-2026.json | Each state's official candidate list, linked from each row. |
| State legislature votes and members | each state's files | The legislature's own records and Open States (CC0 1.0), as each state's methodology page lists them. |
No warranty
We check our figures (how we measure) and correct errors when we find them or someone reports them (corrections). The files are provided as they are, without any warranty, as the license also says.
Changes to these terms
Changed terms get a new version number and date on this page. Files you downloaded under one version stay under that version.