Analyzing partisanship and ideology in the Minnesota Legislature

Two different projects, both analyzing roll call data in the Minnesota Legislature. Each one uses data, static and interactive graphics and interviews with both lawmakers and experts to explain what the data shows about voting in the hyper-polarized Minnesota House of Representatives.

• “The numbers tell the tale: The Minnesota House is starkly partisan”: The initial analysis, looking at party loyalty. Among the findings: a huge partisan gap, but one affected by chamber control with majorities more cohesive than minorities. (Pioneer Press 6/24/2016)

• “Minnesota Senate falls short in data disclosure, will explore upgrades”: A sidebar, in which I shine a spotlight on the Minnesota Senate’s opaque vote-reporting procedure and receive a promise to explore improvements. (Pioneer Press 6/24/2016)

• “How liberal or conservative is your state representative?”: The second project, using the political science tool W-NOMINATE to estimate each Minnesota House member’s ideology from their voting record. View the code used to produce this project here. (Pioneer Press 9/6/2016)

• A year later, I revisited the project estimate ideology for the 2017 Legislature.