Aug. 8, 2026Methodology v2.5 · State metrics: 12 source systems, data through 2023–2025 by metric
Political Grades
government — just the stats

Congress › Tennessee

Matt Van Epps

U.S. Representative, TN-07 · Republican · current term began Dec. 4, 2025

Matt Van Epps
U.S. Representative · Tennessee-07 · Republican · current term began Dec. 2025
Chamber
House
not yet gradeable
Their own recordValue
Legislative effectiveness LES · chamber avg = 1.0Data pending
Missed votes lifetime, all service (GovTrack)0.0%
Ideology 0 = left · 1 = right · 119th Congress sponsorship analysis (GovTrack)0.47
Promises keptIn human review
Tennessee 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. The state’s governor, Bill Lee, holds the scored executive record.

Scored on their own record; district outcome scoring is in development. Methodology v2.5

The national debt on their watch

context — not this member’s grade

When Epps first took office in 2025, the federal debt stood at $35.46 trillion (end of fiscal 2024; 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 Epps’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.

$10T$20T$30T$40T202420252026took office · $35.46 trillion$39.89 trillion
Total public debt outstanding, fiscal 2024–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.

No recorded votes among the tracked bills that carry a CBO deficit estimate.

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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 — 25% of the rubric, reserved until Epps is gradeable at all; on the card above it appears only as the “Promises kept — In human review” row. What Epps 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 Epps. 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 Epps →

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

6 bills and resolutions sponsored in the 119th Congress — the newest:

  • H.R. 9589 — Declaration of Independence Reaffirmation Act of 2026
    Latest action (2026-07-02): Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
  • H.R. 9307 — Web of Biological Data Act of 2026
    Latest action (2026-06-11): Referred to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
  • H.R. 9232 — Critical Infrastructure Airspace Defense Act
    Latest action (2026-07-07): Referred to the Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security.
  • H.R. 8281 — Guard Equal Benefits for Federal Missions Act
    Latest action (2026-04-14): Referred to the Committee on Armed Services, and in addition to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, for a peri…
  • H.R. 8168 — Major Non-NATO Ally Terror Threat Assessment Act
    Latest action (2026-07-14): Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affa…

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.

How they voted

No recorded votes on the bills this site tracks line by line. The full roll-call record is public at Congress.gov.

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No federal fiscal year has closed inside this term yet, so there is no spending chart here. The next one to close is FY2026, on Sept. 30, 2026, and OMB has not published it.

How Epps 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 Epps 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. 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.

← All of CongressTennessee governor’s record →