Get Legislative Effectiveness Scores data

get_les() returns Legislative Effectiveness Scores data from the Center for Effective Lawmaking.

Usage

get_les(chamber, les_2 = deprecated(), local_path = NULL)

Arguments

chamber

Which chamber to get data for. Options are:

• "house", "h", "hr": House data only.

• "senate", "s", "sen": Senate data only.

These options are case-insensitive. Any other argument results in an error.

Note: Unlike the Voteview functions, there is no "all" option. You must specify either House or Senate data, since there is no "default" option.

There are non-trivial differences between the House and Senate datasets, so take care when joining House and Senate data. Important differences include:

• Legislator names are formatted differently. The Senate data has first and last name columns, while the House data has a single thomas_name column.

• The year column refers to the first year of the Congress in the House data, but year refers to the preceding election year in the Senate data. Thus, the year for House members is one after that of senators in the same Congress.

les_2

This argument is now unnecessary, as the 2025 LES dataset includes both LES Classic and LES 2.0 scores in the same dataset. If provided, this argument will be ignored (with a deprecation warning). This argument will be removed in a future release. See the LES Classic and LES 2.0 section below for more information on the two methods.

local_path

(Optional) A file path for reading from a local file. If no local_path is specified, will read data from the Center for Effective Lawmaking website.

Value

A tibble.

Details

See the Center for Effective Lawmaking website for more information on their data.

The Legislative Effectiveness Score methodology was introduced in:

Volden, C., & Wiseman, A. E. (2014). Legislative effectiveness in the United States Congress: The lawmakers. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139032360

LES Classic and LES 2.0

The Center for Effective Lawmaking created a new version of LES starting in the 117th Congress. LES 2.0 credits lawmakers when language from their sponsored bills is included in other legislators' bills that advance through Congress and become law, not just their own sponsored bills. LES 2.0 is only available starting in the 117th Congress (2021-present). LES Classic goes back to the 93rd Congress (1973-present).

See the LES methodology page for more information on these methods.

Examples

get_les("house")
#> # A tibble: 11,606 × 88
#>    thomas_num thomas_name     icpsr congress  year st_name    cd dem   elected
#>         <int> <chr>           <int>    <int> <int> <fct>   <int> <lgl>   <int>
#>  1          1 Abdnor, James   14000       93  1973 SD          2 FALSE    1972
#>  2          2 Abzug, Bella    13001       93  1973 NY         20 TRUE     1970
#>  3          3 Adams, Brock    10700       93  1973 WA          7 TRUE     1964
#>  4          4 Addabbo, Joseph 10500       93  1973 NY          7 TRUE     1960
#>  5          5 Albert, Carl       62       93  1973 OK          3 TRUE     1946
#>  6          6 Alexander, Bill 12000       93  1973 AR          1 TRUE     1968
#>  7          7 Anderson, John  10501       93  1973 IL         16 FALSE    1960
#>  8          8 Anderson, Glenn 12001       93  1973 CA         35 TRUE     1968
#>  9          9 Andrews, Ike    14001       93  1973 NC          4 TRUE     1972
#> 10         10 Andrews, Mark   10569       93  1973 ND          1 FALSE    1963
#> # ℹ 11,596 more rows
#> # ℹ 79 more variables: female <lgl>, votepct <dbl>, dwnom1 <dbl>, dwnom2 <dbl>,
#> #   deleg_size <int>, speaker <lgl>, subchr <lgl>, afam <lgl>, latino <lgl>,
#> #   votepct_sq <dbl>, power <lgl>, chair <lgl>, state_leg <lgl>,
#> #   state_leg_prof <dbl>, majority <lgl>, maj_leader <lgl>, min_leader <lgl>,
#> #   meddist <dbl>, majdist <dbl>, freshman <lgl>, seniority <int>,
#> #   TotalInParty <int>, RankInParty1 <int>, party_code <int>, bioname <chr>, …
get_les("senate")
#> # A tibble: 2,635 × 88
#>    last     first state congress cgnum icpsr  year dem   majority elected female
#>    <chr>    <chr> <fct>    <int> <int> <int> <int> <lgl> <lgl>      <int> <lgl> 
#>  1 Abourezk James SD          93     1 13000  1972 TRUE  TRUE        1972 FALSE 
#>  2 Allen    James AL          93     3 12100  1972 TRUE  TRUE        1968 FALSE 
#>  3 Bayh     Birch IN          93     6 10800  1972 TRUE  TRUE        1962 FALSE 
#>  4 Bentsen  Lloyd TX          93    10   660  1972 TRUE  TRUE        1970 FALSE 
#>  5 Bible    Alan  NV          93    11   688  1972 TRUE  TRUE        1954 FALSE 
#>  6 Biden    Jose… DE          93    12 14101  1972 TRUE  TRUE        1972 FALSE 
#>  7 Burdick  Quen… ND          93    16  1252  1972 TRUE  TRUE        1960 FALSE 
#>  8 Byrd     Robe… WV          93    18  1366  1972 TRUE  TRUE        1958 FALSE 
#>  9 Cannon   Howa… NV          93    19  1482  1972 TRUE  TRUE        1958 FALSE 
#> 10 Chiles   Lawt… FL          93    21 13101  1972 TRUE  TRUE        1970 FALSE 
#> # ℹ 2,625 more rows
#> # ℹ 77 more variables: afam <lgl>, latino <lgl>, votepct <dbl>, chair <lgl>,
#> #   subchr <lgl>, seniority <int>, state_leg <lgl>, state_leg_prof <dbl>,
#> #   maj_leader <lgl>, min_leader <lgl>, votepct_sq <dbl>, power <lgl>,
#> #   freshman <lgl>, sensq <int>, deleg_size <int>, party_code <int>,
#> #   bioname <chr>, bioguide_id <chr>, born <int>, died <int>, dwnom1 <dbl>,
#> #   dwnom2 <dbl>, meddist <dbl>, majdist <dbl>, cbill1 <int>, caic1 <int>, …