As one who used to write such things, recommend Tim always make at least a passing reference to the meaning of the axes and that the data result from IFF scoring.
But I'm still troubled by the interpretation of the axes from the previous post. Take the lower left cluster. The other three clusters are fine, but according to the freedom/spending interpretations, the lower-left group are statist maximalists who support the smallest amount of spending of any cluster.
That doesn't make much sense. According to the 2025 House chart, the most pro-freedom/small government cluster supports more spending than the far-left statists. ???
I suspect the problem is that when a spending bill comes up, no matter how much it spends, it's not enough for the statists. So they vote nay. The data don't distinguish between a nay vote because a bill spends too much or because it doesn't spend enough.
If so, correcting this would require a careful tweak to the underlying data by IFF and a more complicated analysis on Tim's part, which I'm sure he'd handle easily.
The way I read it, the X/Y axes don’t correspond to anything specific in the real world - they’re just visualizing the clustering of votes. In his initial posts Tim overlaid them on the Freedom/Spending indices but that’s not necessarily always the case. They’re not measuring anything so much as showing where the clusters emerge.
There are a couple of misunderstandings here leading to confusion about the map's interpretation. First, the 2025 legislative map was generated from raw floor vote information that I received via IFF, NOT from IFF’s scoring of those votes and bills. (The current 2026 maps are being generated from raw vote information retrieved from the Legiscan site.)
Second, the IFF Indexes were added as overlaid arrows on the 2025 map to help in interpretation only. The arrows point in the direction of increasing IFF score, which goes with voting for less spending and fewer government intrusions on liberty.
It’s a limit of the statistical technique I’m using that it doesn’t provide axes that have a single neat label. It does, however, have two merits that persuade me to use it. First, it is optimal in the mathematical sense - it does the best job possible of explaining the observed voting pattern. Second, it does not oblige me to provide ideological labels to the bills (an alternate technique called factors analysis), as it’s the whole thesis of this project that you can learn more about the legislators by who they vote alongside, than by any labels they or outside scorekeepers - including myself - apply to the matter.
This should have been a reply to JD Foster below, but Substack did some weird stuff. His point that I should reiterate or at least link to an explanation of the axes is well taken.
Thank you... very interesting. It seems to me, that Lori McCann is on the left with the democrats.
Great post, great charts, with one elementary flaw -- you don't explain the axes.
Tim explained it in his first post - I should have linked it here. https://gemstatechronicle.com/2025/12/opinion-who-needs-scorecards-mapping-the-idaho-legislature/
Thanks,
As one who used to write such things, recommend Tim always make at least a passing reference to the meaning of the axes and that the data result from IFF scoring.
But I'm still troubled by the interpretation of the axes from the previous post. Take the lower left cluster. The other three clusters are fine, but according to the freedom/spending interpretations, the lower-left group are statist maximalists who support the smallest amount of spending of any cluster.
That doesn't make much sense. According to the 2025 House chart, the most pro-freedom/small government cluster supports more spending than the far-left statists. ???
I suspect the problem is that when a spending bill comes up, no matter how much it spends, it's not enough for the statists. So they vote nay. The data don't distinguish between a nay vote because a bill spends too much or because it doesn't spend enough.
If so, correcting this would require a careful tweak to the underlying data by IFF and a more complicated analysis on Tim's part, which I'm sure he'd handle easily.
To be clear — love your posts.
JD
The way I read it, the X/Y axes don’t correspond to anything specific in the real world - they’re just visualizing the clustering of votes. In his initial posts Tim overlaid them on the Freedom/Spending indices but that’s not necessarily always the case. They’re not measuring anything so much as showing where the clusters emerge.
There are a couple of misunderstandings here leading to confusion about the map's interpretation. First, the 2025 legislative map was generated from raw floor vote information that I received via IFF, NOT from IFF’s scoring of those votes and bills. (The current 2026 maps are being generated from raw vote information retrieved from the Legiscan site.)
Second, the IFF Indexes were added as overlaid arrows on the 2025 map to help in interpretation only. The arrows point in the direction of increasing IFF score, which goes with voting for less spending and fewer government intrusions on liberty.
You can check out a later article (https://gemstatechronicle.com/2025/12/oren-scoring-the-scorecards-and-the-organizations-behind-them/) where I more carefully interpret various scorecards in light of the observable voting blocs. From this it’s clear that the Democrat corner of the map is in fact voting for both big spending and more state power.
It’s a limit of the statistical technique I’m using that it doesn’t provide axes that have a single neat label. It does, however, have two merits that persuade me to use it. First, it is optimal in the mathematical sense - it does the best job possible of explaining the observed voting pattern. Second, it does not oblige me to provide ideological labels to the bills (an alternate technique called factors analysis), as it’s the whole thesis of this project that you can learn more about the legislators by who they vote alongside, than by any labels they or outside scorekeepers - including myself - apply to the matter.
This should have been a reply to JD Foster below, but Substack did some weird stuff. His point that I should reiterate or at least link to an explanation of the axes is well taken.