For legislative representatives

What we ask for

• Which legislature — Congress, a state chamber, or a local council or board.
• Your position — member, committee chair, ranking member, chamber leadership, staff, or former member.
• Your district, your term, and the committees you sit on.

Former members and legislative staff are on that list deliberately. A great deal of legislative advocacy is done by people who used to hold the seat, and by the chief of staff or committee counsel who can often move a bill further than a backbench member. Neither should have to overstate their role to be useful.

We verify it

Every office is checked against that chamber's own roster before it counts, and nothing is published about you in the meantime. A claim to hold legislative office is a more serious one than a bar number and easier to make, so we treat it accordingly.

The limits we will not pretend away

If you hold office now, your own chamber's ethics rules govern what you may accept and what you may lend your position to — and they are stricter than most people expect. Gift rules, outside-activity rules, and rules on the use of official title and staff time all apply to this as much as to anything else. We are not in a position to advise you on them, and we will not tell you they do not apply. Check with your chamber's ethics counsel before you agree to anything beyond having your name on a list.

There is a second one worth naming. We are a 501(c)(3), which caps how much lobbying we may do. Asking a sitting member to carry a bill for us is lobbying activity on our side, and it is counted and reported. That is a constraint on us, not on you, but it shapes what we will ask.

What this is not

Joining is not an endorsement — not of you by us, and not of us by you or your chamber. We will not describe you as a supporter, a sponsor or a partner without asking you first, in writing, for that specific thing.