Today, we’re delving into some fascinating recent news about GovTrack, an organization renowned for its meticulous tracking of voting records in Congress.

For those not familiar with GovTrack, it identifies itself as a “government transparency website.” In 2019, they scored Harris as the senator who was the “most liberal compared to all senators”, outpacing even senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. However, this particular page, which garnered a lot of media attention during the 2020 election, has now been deactivated.

GovTrack has confirmed that they removed a 2019 webpage that classified Kamala Harris as the “most liberal” U.S. senator for that year. This event took place within the last two weeks, raising many eyebrows.

Axios faced significant criticism on July 24, for an article that contradicted its earlier reports by claiming that Harris was not the “border czar.” This assertion led to widespread backlash, as it appeared to contradict previous statements made by the outlet. In response to the controversy, Axios was compelled to update the story, acknowledging that it had “incorrectly” referred to Harris as the “border czar” in earlier reports.

This is significant due to the timing of the event. President Biden announced the suspension of his campaign and his endorsement of Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee on July 21. Just two days later, Harris announced securing enough delegates to ensure her nomination at the Democratic National Convention next month.

Joshua Tauberer, the founder of GovTrack, shed light on the decision to remove the webpage. He claimed that GovTrack had adopted a policy to stop its single-year ratings of lawmakers and instead focus on rating Congressional sessions, which span two years. They believe a single year’s data isn’t sufficient to provide an accurate representation of a legislator’s activities. According to them, the revised method serves as a more useful tool for their users and the American public.

Tauberer confirmed that the page was removed in the last two weeks, though he didn’t mention a specific date. When questioned about why the pages weren’t removed when the single-year report cards were discontinued years ago, he claimed, “I was focused on more impactful aspects of our work.”

Interestingly, GovTrack’s 2020 page for Harris is still active, where she’s ranked as the “most politically left compared to Senate Democrats” for the 116th Congress. She stands as the second most liberal in all of the Senate, right behind Independent Sanders.

In October 2020, GovTrack shifted its terminology from “most liberal” to “most politically left.” It’s also essential to point out that these rankings are based on senators’ “legislative behavior” and their records of sponsoring or cosponsoring bipartisan bills.