U.S. Representative, MA-02 · Democratic · current term began Jan. 3, 2025
James P. McGovern
U.S. Representative · Massachusetts-02 · Democratic · current term began Jan. 2025
Overall grade · among representatives
−0.05σ
No. 199 of 358 · 4 others at the same σ · 40% of the grade measured
How this grade is built
30%Bills they move (LES, 118th Congress)+0.11
25%Massachusetts: how it moved on their watchreserved
10%Fiscal votes (CBO-scored laws)−0.16
25%Alignment (promises vs. votes)reserved
10%Attendance (missed votes)reserved
Their own record
Value
Legislative effectiveness LES · chamber avg = 1.0 · 118th Congress
0.58
Missed votes lifetime, all service (GovTrack)
1.4%
Ideology 0 = left · 1 = right · 119th Congress sponsorship analysis (GovTrack)
0.13
Promises kept
In human review
Massachusetts context — not this member’s grade
House members represent a district, not the whole state, so state numbers aren’t their grade. District-level scoring is in development.
Scored on their own record; district outcome scoring is in development. Methodology v2.5
The Rundown
No. 199 of 358 representatives — on the 40% of the grade we can actually measure.
Bills that move. A Legislative Effectiveness Score of 0.58 — the scale is set so each chamber averages 1.00, and it counts only the bills a member sponsors themselves and how far each one gets. The grade scores that against members of the same chamber on the same side of the majority, so it reflects lawmaking rather than who holds the gavel: the same score sits differently in the majority than out of it. Measured over the 118th Congress, now complete.
Fiscal votes. The deficit footprint of the laws McGovern voted for, per CBO's estimates, ranked against other representatives with enough scored votes — a lower footprint ranks higher. Six scored laws today, dollar-dominated by the largest, so this measures the pandemic-era fiscal record more than a career; coverage broadens as laws are added. Every vote and its CBO figure is itemized in the debt section below.
Not counted — 60% of the rubric. promise-keeping (25%): promise/position alignment publishes only after two agreeing human reviews · attendance (10%): needs per-Congress missed votes; our figure is lifetime · state/district outcomes (25%): no defensible district trend exists yet (redistricting)
So this is a ranking of 2 things, not a verdict on a career. House members are never handed their state's numbers — a representative serves a district, and no honest district trend exists yet. Everything reserved above publishes the moment it can be measured fairly, and never before.
When McGovern first took office in 1997, the federal debt stood at $5.22 trillion (end of fiscal 1996; Treasury). As of 2026-08-06 it is $39.89 trillion (Treasury, daily). That rise spans presidents, majorities and economies — it belongs to no single member, which is why it is context here and part of no grade. What is McGovern’s own: their recorded votes when the major fiscal bills came through, beside what the Congressional Budget Office estimated each law would do to deficits.
Total public debt outstanding, fiscal 1996–present, in nominal dollars — no adjustment for inflation or the size of the economy, so early decades understate their era’s burden. Y-axis starts at zero. Source: Treasury.
Debt figures as of the data refresh on 2026-08-08. These same votes feed the grade’s fiscal-conduct block (10%, methodology v2.5) — the debt itself feeds nothing: it belongs to no single member, and only their own votes are scored. The change is preregistered and dated in the changelog.
The promise ledger
The evidence base for the promise-keeping block of the grade — the 25% shown as reserved on the card above. What McGovern said they would do, in their own words, beside what they did. Said-columns hold verbatim quotes only, from dated, linkable sources, and publish only after two agreeing human reviews — the methodology’s bar, and the reason a column may be empty: the bar does not move to fill it.
In their speeches
No promise from a speech has been published for McGovern. One appears here only as a verbatim quote from a dated transcript, and only after two agreeing human reviews — the column stays empty until something clears that bar. The raw material is public meanwhile: search C-SPAN’s video archive for McGovern →
In their advertising
None published yet — same bar as speeches. The public archives are searchable now: the Meta Ad Library and Google’s ad-transparency archive, searched by name — a search, so same-named others may appear in the results.
Bills they introduced
35 bills and resolutions sponsored in the 119th Congress — the newest:
H.Res. 1441 — Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 9586) to deliver priority legislation.
Latest action (2026-07-20): Referred to the House Committee on Rules.
Latest action (2026-07-17): Referred to the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity.
H.R. 9226 — Connecticut River Watershed Partnership Act
Latest action (2026-06-09): Referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committee on Transportation and Infrast…
H.R. 8982 — Assuring the Future of Tibet Act of 2026
Latest action (2026-05-21): Referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
From the Congress.gov API, as of 2026-08-08. Latest actions are quoted from the record — most introduced bills die in committee, and that is part of the record too.
These are the major bills this site tracks line by line — not a full voting record. A member casts hundreds of votes a Congress; these 8 are the ones whose spending has been extracted and cited from the enacted text.
Every date links to the official roll call for McGovern’s own chamber. “Did not vote” is not “absent” — the record shows no vote was cast and gives no reason, which is often illness, travel or a paired vote. Nothing on this table is counted toward or against McGovern’s grade.
What McGovern voted to fund
These pies aggregate the largest verified spending items — appropriations and mandatory outlays — in the bills McGovern cast a recorded vote on, sliced by category, every dollar quoted from the bill text. Authorizations, guarantee ceilings and pay-fors are excluded, exactly as on the bill pages. This shows what the bills contained, by McGovern’s own votes — not a claim that McGovern wrote the spending or that it did or didn’t work. Every dollar in these pies is quoted from the bill text and cited, item by item, on the bill’s own page.
The remaining 168 items are quoted in full on the bill pages.
Federal spending during McGovern’s current term
Total U.S. federal outlays for each fiscal year of McGovern’s current term. This is the whole federal budget — mostly Social Security, Medicare, defense, interest on the debt, and prior commitments — not money McGovern personally directed. A president proposes and Congress appropriates; no single official controls it.
Nominal dollars — not adjusted for inflation. Bar lengths compare dollars of different years, so a longer bar can be higher prices rather than more spending. Do not read these bars as a real trend.
FY25
$7.01T74% in term−$1.77T deficit
Source: OMB Historical Tables, Table 1.1 (Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits: 1789-present) · figures · compiled Aug. 8, 2026. Fiscal years run Oct–Sep, so they do not line up with the start of a term — marked above with the share that fell inside this term.
Closed fiscal years published for this term so far: FY2025 only. FY2026 closes Sept. 30, 2026 and OMB has not published it. A short chart here means the term is young and the series stops at the last closed year — not that spending stopped.
How McGovern is graded
A representative serves a district, not a state, and no honest district-level outcome trend exists yet — redistricting redrew the lines and leaves too few data points. So McGovern is graded on bills alone: how far the legislation they sponsor actually moves. Voting alignment and attendance are in the rubric but reserved, not counted, so 40% of this grade is measured and the card says so. The state’s numbers are shown as context on the card, never folded into the grade, until district-level scoring ships.
Legislative Effectiveness Scores come from the Center for Effective Lawmaking, which benchmarks each chamber’s average to 1.0. Voting statistics come from GovTrack. The Honesty ledger — promises matched against this member’s votes — publishes only with an evidence trail and two agreeing human reviews.