Exploring the environmental voting records of state legislators

By Will Jarrett

When in comes to action on climate change, big federal and international initiatives often dominate the headlines. But just as critical are the ideas, debates, and compromises being hashed out at the state level.

Non-profit Climate Cabinet Action has collated the voting records of thousands of state legislators to build up a picture of which states are displaying climate leadership – and which are falling behind. Using the tool below, you can explore 25 state legislatures to find patterns and outliers.

To find a specific legislator, type their name in the search bar below.

Methodology

The climate scores of each legislator were calculated by dividing the number of pro-environmental votes by the total number of environmental votes, with climate-specific votes given a double weighting. Legislators who do not yet have climate scores are shown on the right-hand side. You can find out more at Climate Cabinet Action.

This graph was made using the JavaScript library D3. A force simulation was used to determine the position of each point, and the resulting coordinates were then used as absolute values.

Data should be accurate as of August 15th 2021. If you encounter any issues with the tool, please let me know.

Header photo credit Dan Stark