Our Mission

Advancing the limited government principles of the U.S. Constitution by increasing transparency within Congress and the 50 state legislatures.

How We Accomplish It

Constructing the most comprehensive policy and voting data sets for the leading liberty-minded organizations and bringing the movement together through our research and technology.

The Problem

Our Government Today Versus the Government Our Founding Fathers Established in 1789

When our nation’s founding fathers ratified the U.S. Constitution on March 4, 1789, they championed a government that was accountable to the people with limited powers and duties. For that reason, they implemented a system of checks and balances in an attempt to restrain government growth and power to prevent the tyranny that plagued all previous institutions. Because of their commitment to protecting free markets, property rights, individual liberties and equal application of law – core tenants of limited government – America became the most powerful and prosperous nation in world history.

While the document they drafted 234 years ago may technically still exist, our nation’s adherence to the core tenants of limited government and the Constitution does not. Within recent years the size and scope of our government has exploded. Just this past year the federal government spent $6.27 trillion (over $19,000 per person) which does not include the over $3 trillion state and local governments spent. This drastic growth of government resulted in a $1.5 trillion budget deficit, and has further ballooned our national debt to $31 trillion, representing a 50% increase in just 5 years. Unfortunately, this unsustainable amount of debt represents only a small fraction of our country’s real fiscal time bomb – federal and state unfunded liabilities such as Social Security and Medicare – which coupled with state debt, exceed $200 trillion. This means that the average family of four must chip in $2.6 million dollars just to cover our existing debt and liabilities. Not only do we not need this level of government, we simply can’t afford it.

“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”

– Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The ILA’s Work

Returning our Country to the Limited Government our Founding Fathers Envisioned

The only way to return to a limited government grounded by the U.S. Constitution is through our lawmakers. But the reality is a number of Americans don’t know who represents them – especially at the state level – let alone how their elected officials vote. And it may be for good reason. After all, how is the average person expected to track all of the bills that are voted upon and dissect the countless complex policies that are introduced each year?
Fortunately, there is a very real solution – legislative scorecards. These tools break down complex bills into short summaries while recording how each lawmaker voted. As a result, any individual can easily comprehend all of the policies that were voted upon and where their lawmakers stand. Scorecards have been deployed successfully by countless business and lobbying groups to pass bills at both the federal and state level. Scorecards have also been utilized by some organizations to measure adherence to different political philosophies, oftentimes rating lawmakers on hot-button social and cultural issues like abortion and gender. However, while political scorecards may evaluate some limited government principles, they are often biased to the select beliefs of the individuals constructing them, or changes that occur within their political philosophy, such as certain events or the people leading their movement.
It was for this reason that the ILA was established. We are building the nation’s most advanced legislative database and lawmaker evaluation platform for the liberty movement. We have only one agenda – ensuring each lawmaker adheres to the limited government principles of the U.S. Constitution. And unlike previous initiatives that have been tied to particular people or evolving political philosophies, the guiding philosophy of our system dates back to March 4, 1789.  

Serving as the “Data Hub”

Providing the Liberty Movement with the Most Advanced Data and Technology

The monumental battle to restore our country’s commitment to limited government and the Constitution cannot be won by just a single organization. Rather, it is going to take an army of organizations that are committed to limited government principles and are all working together for us to achieve victory. For years, our movement has failed to properly coordinate, resulting in duplicated work and wasted resources. Furthermore, large national entities have far too often attempted to centrally plan all operations and activist deployment – of course creating significant inefficiencies and poor results.
The ILA is serving the liberty movement through a “bottom-up” approach which entails partnering and coordinating with a multitude of other groups advocating for limited government. Plus, local-level organizations – who are best equipped to organize and drive change – are now being equipped with the ILA data platform they need to drive change through ILA’s research and technology. At the federal level, ILA’s team annually publishes the most comprehensive study ever performed on the U.S. Congress which includes the extraction of over 65,000 votes for its platform. The ILA is in the process of expanding its operations to each of the 50 state legislatures, providing liberty-minded groups access to levels of data never before achieved.
This data has a wide range of applications and is utilized by groups in many ways ranging from academic studies, candidate evaluations, opposition research in elections, and for lobbying through legislative scorecards. In uses such as legislative scorecards, ILA provides a number of other tools and technologies to maximize effectiveness. Afterall, it is only through our movement working together that we can once again make government accountable to the people. And most importantly, shift our country back to its limited government and constitutional roots that our founding fathers so heavily championed on March 4, 1789.

“An informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.”

– Thomas Jefferson

The Research Process

Compiling the Most Expansive Dataset for the Liberty Movement

The ILA annually produces the most expansive dataset on the U.S. Congress including bill analyses and lawmaker voting, and is also working on expanding the system to each of the states and all 7,383 state lawmakers. While data sets are only as good as the bill evaluation, sampling and the research behind it, ILA fortunately has some of the foremost experts who each have over a decade of experience.

The ILA’s research process consists of multiple steps to ensure every key bill, amendment and procedural vote is properly analyzed and collected. The ILA team reviews bill testimony, fiscal notes and text, shifts through hundreds of thousands of pages within legislative journals, monitors local media reporting, and consults with local policy experts that follow Congress and the state legislatures. Additionally, all policy analysts are specially trained to navigate the unique legislative procedures of the 50 state capitols to select the correct votes and bill versions. 

The work requires expertise within hundreds of different policy fields. Additionally, commercial platforms are limited in their ability to correctly extract every hidden procedural motion and amendment within a number of state legislatures, requiring specialized knowledge and vote extraction capabilities, which the ILA has developed and constantly updates. 

The ILA’s end goal is to provide the most accurate and representative sampling of every key issue that has been voted upon within each legislature, which is ultimately incorporated into ILA’s data platform and provided to all of ILA’s allies.

105,000

Bills Reviewed

4,000

Policy Summaries Produced

310,000

Votes Extracted

8,000

Lawmakers Rated

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Limited Government Index (LGI)

The data platform that allows liberty-minded organizations to create legislative scorecards, produce scholarly research, and access lawmaker data for elections.

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Allied Organizations

Activists

Lawmakers

Voters

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LIMITED GOVERNMENT

WINS

Contact Us

For press inquiries contact press@limitedgov.org. Please email all other inquiries to info@limitedgov.org or through the form below.

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Mailing Address

Institute for Legislative Analysis
300 Independence Ave, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20003