Analysis · October 21, 2026

What A students have in common

39 members of Congress have an A or A−. Every one of them has voted on at least 97% of roll calls. A look at what separates the top grades from the bottom.

Thirty-nine members of the 119th Congress have an A or an A−: 33 in the House and 6 in the Senate. They come from both parties and from every region, and they include first-term members and veterans of many terms. But they share a few traits that show up clearly in the numbers. This article looks at what those traits are, and at what the 36 members with an F have in common too.

Rule one: show up

Every member with an A-range grade has voted on at least 97% of the roll calls they were eligible for. Their average attendance is 99.2%. Not one of them has missed more than about 3% of votes.

That is not a coincidence. Attendance is 40% of the grade, and the attendance score falls quickly: 99% attendance earns about 93 points, 97% earns 80, and 94% earns only 60. A member who misses 6% of votes has to be near the very top of their chamber on both bill scores just to reach a B. Strong attendance is close to a requirement for an A.

The members with an F show the reverse. Their average attendance is 87.1%, which earns an attendance score of about 14. With a score that low, even excellent bill activity can't bring the overall grade above the 60s.

Rule two: write a lot of bills, and move some

A-range members score an average of 92 on "bills written," which means they are near the top of their chamber. Some get there through volume. Michael Lawler of New York has sponsored 118 bills, the most in the House, and Rick Scott of Florida has sponsored 157, the most in the Senate. Others get there by moving bills. Jimmy Panetta of California has sponsored 51 bills, fewer than many A-range members, but one became law and two more passed the House.

The F-range members average 69 on bills written, a little below the middle of their chambers. Most of them are not unusually inactive as legislators; their grades are low mainly because of attendance.

Rule three: sign on to colleagues' bills

A-range members also score high on cosponsorship, averaging 92. Several are among the most active cosponsors in Congress: Brian K. Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania has cosponsored 1,106 bills and Eugene Simon Vindman of Virginia 1,011. All but three A-range members are above the middle of their chamber on cosponsorship.

The top ten

Joe Neguse has the highest score in Congress: one missed vote out of 674, 89 bills sponsored and 567 cosponsored. Jimmy Panetta hasn't missed a vote at all. Five of the top ten are Democrats and five are Republicans.

In the Senate, the A-range members are Rick Scott, Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Jim Banks of Indiana and Adam B. Schiff of California. All six have missed fewer than 25 of the Senate's 915 votes, and each has sponsored at least 79 bills.

A pattern worth noticing: competitive seats

Several of the House's top scorers represent districts that are closely contested in general elections, including Brian K. Fitzpatrick, Don Bacon, Michael Lawler, Young Kim, Jennifer A. Kiggans, Chris Pappas and Eugene Simon Vindman. That isn't something the report card measures directly, and there are plenty of high scorers from safe seats too. But it fits a plausible explanation: members in competitive districts have strong reasons to build visible records of attendance and bipartisan bill work, and both show up in the grades.

What an A doesn't mean

An A on Congress Report Card means a member shows up to vote almost every time and is among the most active in their chamber at writing and supporting bills. It doesn't mean their bills are good, their votes are right or that they are effective at the parts of the job the data can't see, such as committee work, oversight and helping constituents. A member can score very well by filing a large number of bills that never move; Vindman's 76 sponsored bills, for example, are all still at the introduction stage, though Vindman's attendance and cosponsorship scores are near the top of the House.

Likewise, a low grade doesn't mean a member is doing nothing. Party leaders, for example, often score in the C or D range because their jobs don't involve writing many bills. Why party leaders score low on bills explains why.

To find your own members' grades, search by name or ZIP code on the home page or browse by state.

Figures are from the Congress Report Card data as of October 21, 2026. Grades change as Congress votes, so the numbers on member pages may have moved since. How grades are calculated.