State of Congress
Day 3,747, 18:47
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Hazelrah
The last time I did an analysis of Congress like this, members of Congress were elected as individuals in each region. It made sense, at that time, to evaluate the performance of each individual member of Congress.
Since then, the game has changed. We now elect members of Congress by voting for party only. Additionally, only the top 5 parties are awarded positions in Congress. What changes, then, is only the number of representatives each party gets, and how the Party President ranks them. For this reason, it makes more sense to take a look at the performance of each party as a whole, mentioning individuals only insofar as they affect party results.
The numbers I present below are meant only to be informative, not evaluative. If, for example, you value forum activity as a fun addition to the game or a means of better decision making, you may wish to choose to vote for a party who has a better record there. If, on the other hand, you believe the forums are a tool of oppression maintained by Aristocrats, then you may wish to vote for a party that ignores or even boycotts them.
The values I report below are defined as follows:
Forum Presence - This is the percent of party participation in public forum votes.
Party Consistency - This is how often members of a party vote the "party-line" or with the majority of their party.
Vote Transparency - I requested voters share their in-game votes with me. This is the percent who disclosed their vote.
Party Effectiveness - The percent of party members who voted with the overall majority.
FORUM PRESENCE
*Average percent of members who voted in forum votes.
Federalists - 52%
Socialists - 55%
Constitutionalists - 85%
Black Sheep - 39%
We the People - 35%
PARTY CONSISTENCY
*Average percent of members who voted with their party majority.
Federalists - 73%
Socialists - 85%
Constitutionalists - 93%
Black Sheep - 98%
We the People - 74%
VOTE TRANSPARENCY
*Percent of members who shared their in-game votes.
Federalists - 39%
Socialists - 60%
Constitutionalists - 82%
Black Sheep - 10%
We the People - 17%
AVERAGE EFFECTIVENESS
*Percent of the time members voted with the overall congress majority.
Federalists - 35%
Socialists - 36%
Constitutionalists - 57%
Black Sheep - 26%
We the People - 26%
Here's how the parties voted (ignoring no-shows) on major public legislation:
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE
Federalists - 50% Jimmy Cincinnati, 50% dmjohnston
Socialists - 100% Jimmy Cincinnati
Constitutionalists - 90% dmjohnston, 10% Jimmy Cincinnati
Black Sheep - 87.5% Jimmy Cincinnati, 12.5% dmjohnston
We the People - 50% Jimmy Cincinnati, 50% dmjohnston
RESERVE DISCLOSURE
Federalists - 75% Opposed
Socialists - 100% In favor
Constitutionalists - 90% Opposed
Black Sheep - 100% In favor
We the People - 50% In favor
IMPEACHMENT
Federalists - 64% In favor
Socialists - 100% Opposed
Constitutionalists - 91% In favor
Black Sheep - 100% Opposed
We the People - 50% In favor
In terms of in-game votes, I did not have a high enough transparency response (41
😵for accurate data. Instead I will simply list those who responded as voting against the majority on major legislation. Thank you for your bravery.
Against any CBO Donations: Kobble (BSP), Salty (SFP), shiloh13 (SFP) (As many as 15 voted anonymously against this.)
Against Raising Work Tax to 5%: Cyberion (TCP) (17 members voted anonymously against this.)
Against Lowering Work Tax to 3%: MollyEmma (Fed) (4 members voted anonymously against this.)
Against Croatia Trade Embargo: shiloh13 (SFP), PilotPhil (SFP) (7 members voted anonymously against this.)
Against Croatia Air Strike: Herr Vootsman (Fed) (7 members voted anonymously against this.)
Thank you to the following 24 members of Congress for their transparency:
(FED) MollyEmma, Herr Vootsman, shadowber, LifesaverM, Bob Boudahili, JFstpierre, JD Jack Serenade
(SFP) shiloh13, PilotPhil, Salty, T Recks, King James88
(TCP) Andy Dufresne, Carlos3652, just another George, Animis, Gnilraps, Cyberion, dmjohnston, WildOwl, Celtic Knight, Evry (AMP)
(BSP) Kobble
(WTP) Oblige
The following 25 members of Congress ignored or did not reply to both my forum post and in-game message:
(FED) Cthulhu, Dinnyin, Buckwheat McCoy, Arctic Sunrise, J.A. Lake, Mark Matters, Red. John, Chadwick, Thundergon
(SFP) Franklin Stone, Jimmy Cincinnati, iamsmok, Maxwell Hanz
(TCP) Deepchill (EZCA)
(BSP) Kellen Deming, Captain Black Sheep, jadiv, warriord5, Mr. Robot, AlexPIT, Phil-Stone, Henry William French
(WTP) Old Dirty Bastard, Nesterus, nononever
The following 5 members of Congress replied but preferred to remain anonymous:
(FED) Gabriel_Hornz, MelissaRose
(BSP) PMG-24
(WTP) Cubby, The Mike
SOURCE DATA:
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Comments
Please use the comments to discuss how well your Congress did or did not represent you this month. What information do you use when voting for a party? What other information would be useful to you?
Nice stuff!
For the most part I disagree with the majority of the Congress. However I don't care much what they do, I am only active to support friends. The game is much to dull. 😉
Is there any way Congress could make it more exciting or interesting?
I fear I am much too gone already, however when people should publish very interesting articles about interesting congress debates I might be trapped again.
Great article!
A few slight issues with this but overall, thank you again for a great article.
1 issue is what you term as overall forum presence. You base that on votes, and that is not necessarily true. There are times when it is a strategically better not to vote on something at all. For instance not voting so a vote doesn't reach quorum.
You've rated me at 90% forum presence based on the fact I didn't vote on impeachment. I did that for a specific reason and it doesn't reflect at all on my forum presence.
The other problem I noticed of course is the fact that the feds have so many more congressmen that the numbers are skewed...
Thanks for bringing up quorum and the strategy involved. As usual, numbers are just that and don't provide full context... so thanks for adding some. It is more accurate to say you voted in 90% of forum votes.
correct
Very interesting stuff - nice work.
oh my god this is fantastic
In order to understand how easily the balance of power can shift, take a look at the Speaker of the House vote compared to the Impeachment Vote. You'll see that only a few Feds and a couple WTP members switched from their previous opinion, but that was enough to change the result. Fascinating!
Awesome stuff David!!! o7
Great stuff and full disclosure I forgot that I did vote against the Croatia trade embargo.
o7 wow!! 🙂
This is great information, and well presented. My only quarrel with it is that I am not convinced that voting with the majority translates to effectiveness. Nevertheless, it is great for players to see how well their parties did or did not represent them in the last month.
I thought about this too. The reason I decided to word it this way is that the function of Congress is to pass laws. If I want to be an effective member of congress, I need to find a way to build a majority consensus around my ideas in order to make them law. It makes sense then, that members who are able to build a majority more often are more effective lawmakers.
Excellent article and great presentation.
I really hope you keep producing these interesting articles.
You are doing a great job of keeping average citizens informed.
Something the government has given up.
And completely with this CP.
what is his name again?
Nice analysis. I understand that some folks like to play the forum-based Congress game, while others are not so fond of it. Nor are those critical of the off-game forum a small minority; they represent a significant chunk of the eUSA player base.
I'd love to see more efforts on the part of forum fans to erase the boundaries -- like more in-game reporting (like this) of Congressional events -- and more creative efforts by forum antis to promote alternative means of player engagement. Here I am thinking of stuff that is fun, engaging, but has little to do with Congress. Like the MU's but in other areas. For example, Leon Gutierrez has been encouraging things like the SFP General Assembly, Artist Collective and Internationale -- all fun ways for players to engage in the game community. So far, these are mainly within an "SFP and Friends" context, but there could be broader versions of such things.
btw, nice job. Love this.
I always like seeing my name in stuff
Is there a place where you can access those statistics or did you have to do it all on google docs?
I took all the information available on the public forums and did the math in a google doc.
This is a great analysis. This information can be used where all parties can see where they need improve.
good work, interesting
love ya !
This is an awesome article. Great job compiling all of this info. It's interesting to see the different votes along party lines 🙂
Great info
OMG. this is you? i absolutely loved your article.
OMG. this is you? i absolutely loved your article.
TL😉R 🙂
I like data, I'm a numbers guy. Data is cool.
I'm glad you included some individual data because while members of congress are voted in as a party there is still plenty of individualism in opinions and areas of interest/passionate about.
I like it bud
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Fantastic stuff