Paul Barron Network
Digital Freedom Tracker
Score Model · How the grades are built

Score Model

The letter bands, pillar weights, coverage, update schedule and how members of the 120th Congress are added.

Scores as of Nov 14, 2026 · How scores work →

How to read the grades

Every letter is on a 0–100 scale where higher = more digital freedom. The same bands are used for Overall, Crypto, AI, Privacy and Banking Lobby (Privacy’s 1–10 score is rescaled to 0–100; the member card still shows the underlying numbers).

A ≥90B 70–89C 50–69D 25–49F <25n/a = insufficient data

Overall weights

Overall = Crypto 50% · AI 25% · Privacy 15% · Banking Lobby 10%. Only pillars with data are used; the weights are re-normalized over those pillars. For example, a member with only Crypto and Privacy is scored at about 77% / 23%. The older 60/40 Crypto+AI “converged” score is still shown as its own column on the member card.

The four pillars

Crypto · 50%

Crypto

The Crypto baseline is the member’s Stand With Crypto score (bill sponsorships, cosponsorships, votes and statements, using SWC’s own cutoffs). That baseline is cross-checked against our Pro-Crypto DF Model. Today that cross-check is a donor adjustment: the score is pulled toward F by donations from bank trade groups that lobbied against crypto (ABA, ICBA, BPI, CBA, state bankers associations). If there are none and the member’s Stand With Crypto stance is positive or neutral (50 or higher), they get +5 toward A, capped at 100. Verified votes, bills and statements are already in the Stand With Crypto baseline; they are not scored a second time in the DF Model.
AI · 25%

AI

100 = pro-innovation, light-touch rules and federal preemption; 0 = heavy regulation and liability expansion. Based only on verified actions: sponsoring preemption, moratorium or sandbox bills (toward A); leading efforts to strip preemption or sponsoring AI liability or mandatory-testing bills (toward F). Thin evidence is pulled toward the middle. Near-unanimous votes (such as the 99–1 moratorium vote) are logged but do not set a score on their own. No verified AI-opposition donor list exists yet, so donors do not affect AI.
Privacy · 15%

Privacy

70% financial privacy and surveillance limits + 30% free speech. The non-speech slice covers anti-CBDC bills, repeal of the IRS DeFi broker rule, self-custody (Keep Your Coins), developer protections (Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act), the Saving Privacy Act and similar bills, and bills that limit license-plate-reader / mass vehicle surveillance. Free speech so far uses one signal: sponsoring or original-cosponsoring the Sunset Section 230 Act counts against. Where no free-speech evidence is verified, Privacy uses the non-speech slice only.
Banking Lobby · 10%

Banking Lobby

A = resists the bank lobby, F = aligns with it. Driven by verified 2025–26 FEC donations from bank and financial-institution PACs and executives: more money and more donors push toward F. A member with zero such donors scores 85 (B), not an automatic A. Where legislative signals exist (for example the bank-backed SA 6771 stablecoin-yield amendment), the grade blends 60% donors / 40% legislative.

What n/a means

n/a means insufficient data, not a neutral or failing grade. If there is no verified evidence for a pillar, we do not guess. That pillar is left out of the Overall, and the remaining weights are re-normalized. Every scored item links to its source in the member’s expanded card.

Current coverage

Counts below are generated from this build’s member file, for the 539 seated members of the 119th Congress unless noted. Members-elect are counted separately.

539seated members
126members-elect (2027)
127leaving Jan 3, 2027
531seated with a Crypto score
17seated with an AI score
517seated with a Privacy score
537seated with a Banking Lobby grade
9seated with a free-speech signal

AI and free-speech coverage are thin by design: only verified items are scored. 73 of 126 members-elect have a Crypto score (including 6 sitting House members who keep their current House record). Other pillars for new members-elect are n/a until verified evidence exists.

Data sources

  • Biographies, chambers, committees and time in office: unitedstates/congress-legislators.
  • Crypto baseline: Stand With Crypto. Cross-check (Pro-Crypto DF Model): the bank trade-group donor adjustment described above, from the FEC 2025–26 bulk files.
  • Votes, bills and sponsorships: congress.gov, senate.gov and clerk.house.gov. No curated item is added without a source URL.
  • Banking Lobby and the crypto donor adjustment: FEC 2025–26 bulk files (PAC contributions and itemized individual gifts over $200).
  • ZIP search: Census 2020 ZCTA to 119th Congress district relationship file. Search is by ZIP only; ZIP lists are not shown on cards.
  • Members-elect: a race is added only when the Wikipedia results table and the Ballotpedia race page agree on the winner.

Data Center Friendly score

This is a state score, not a member score. It is shown on the Data Centers map at /states/. Higher (A) means friendlier to data centers; lower (F) means the state has blocked or paused them. The same A–F bands as the member grades are used. The District of Columbia is n/a (not a state). Incoming governors in Texas and Ohio are noted and are not scored.

Score = 50% state policy + 25% sales-and-use tax exemption + 25% facility presence.

  • State policy (50%). 100 if there is no in-force state pause, block, cancellation or incentive moratorium. 35 for an incentive pause only (construction not stopped). 0 for a state permit or approval pause, or a canceled state contract. Pledges (including those of incoming governors), failed or unsigned bills, conditions-only frameworks, and local or county actions are not scored. Source: this tracker’s States Against Data Centers file.
  • Sales-and-use tax exemption (25%). 100 if a data-center-specific sales and use tax exemption is in law and open to new applicants. 40 if such an exemption exists in law but is paused or closed to new applicants. 0 if the sourced survey found no data-center-specific sales and use tax exemption. Property-tax-only, electricity-only, or tax-credit programs are recorded in the notes and do not receive credit on this component. Source: Megawatt Index, Data Center Tax Incentives by State (updated Oct 16, 2026, each row confirmed on a statute, session law or agency page), checked against this tracker’s pause file.
  • Facility presence (25%). 100 × ln(1 + listed facilities) / ln(1 + the highest count among the 50 states). Source: Data Center Map, USA, retrieved Nov 6, 2026 (listed facilities of all sizes, not capacity).

Map labels are the announced investment of paused or canceled projects (a minus, using the low end of a range). That investment is mostly delayed, not necessarily lost. No plus labels for announced new or expanded projects are shown: public trackers disagree by tens or hundreds of billions for the same state, so no plus figure is published rather than guessed.

How we update

Updated as of Nov 14, 2026. Election results last checked Nov 14, 2026.

A nightly scan runs around 2 AM Eastern Time. It checks votes, bills, committee actions, press statements and Stand With Crypto (baseline) score changes, re-checks uncalled 2026 races, then rebuilds this site.

FEC donor data is not part of the nightly scan. Banking Lobby and the crypto donor adjustment use the FEC 2025–26 bulk files (PAC contributions and itemized individual gifts over $200). Those files are rebuilt when they are re-downloaded; there is no set public refresh calendar.

2027 Congress (120th)

Members-elect come from the Nov 3, 2026 races. A winner is added only when Wikipedia’s results table and Ballotpedia agree. Uncalled races stay pending and are never guessed. The nightly update keeps filling in pending races as they are called.

Members-elect take office Jan 3, 2027. Departing members stay on the list and are flagged “Leaving office Jan 3, 2027” until then.

Members-elect are not ranked. Their grades stay n/a until real evidence exists, except where Stand With Crypto (baseline) has rated them as candidates (Overall then uses that Crypto score under the usual re-normalization rule). Sitting House members moving to the Senate keep their current House record.

ZIP results use current (119th Congress) district lines. Several states redrew their maps for 2027, so a ZIP match for a new district is approximate until a 120th-Congress district file is published.

12 races not yet called

As of Nov 14, 2026. Listed from this build’s pending file; not guessed.

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Donate to support the research · About & Tips · Paul Barron Network: Home · Research · Membership · Digital Freedom Tracker v1.5. Sources: congress.gov, senate.gov, clerk.house.gov, FEC, unitedstates/congress-legislators, and cited press. Scores are editorial analysis, not endorsements. Every scored item links to its source in the member's expanded card.