CaptureIndex

About the Capture Index

The Capture Index is a committee-level accountability instrument — one of seven instruments in the Citizens' League platform and a core component of Operation Citizen. It scores 37 committees of the 119th Congress — 34 of the 36 standing committees plus three select committees with legislative jurisdiction — on the distance between what citizens ask each committee to do and what the committee actually produces or blocks, weighted by the financial relationship between regulated industries and committee leadership.

It is paired with the Citizens' League Congressional Scorecard, which measures individual members across five accountability dimensions. Where the Scorecard answers “who is my representative accountable to,” the Capture Index answers “who is the committee accountable to.” The two instruments use the same underlying data sources and read the same institution from two different altitudes.

The methodology applied here is drawn from thirty years of audit practice at a Big Four accounting firm. A committee is treated as a client engagement. The republic is the governance system under audit. The citizen is the stakeholder the audit is supposed to protect. The finding, industry by industry, is a material weakness — not in any single administration or party, but in the structural architecture itself.

Scoring Methodology

Every committee is scored on two independent dimensions. The Capture Score (0–100) measures alignment between donor interests and committee output. The Transparency Rating (0–10) measures how much of the committee's actual work is visible to the public. A committee can be deeply captured and fully transparent — captured in plain sight.

The Capture Score is a rubric score, not a calculation. A committee is assessed against four criteria. Each is worth up to 25 points. The four are added to a score out of 100. Every card shows the evidence behind each criterion, so any score can be disputed one criterion at a time rather than as a whole.

1 · Revolving Door Density (0–25). Named former members and staff of this committee now working for interests under its jurisdiction — how many, how senior, and how directly their current clients touch the committee's work. Sourced from FARA and lobbying disclosures. 0–5 none identified · 6–12 present but junior or indirect · 13–19 multiple, senior, direct · 20–25 sustained pipeline in both directions.

2 · Funder Alignment (0–25). Whether committee leadership's largest funders are the interests the committee regulates, and whether contributions cluster around committee action. Sourced from FEC filings, with the cycle stated. 0–5 funders unrelated to jurisdiction · 6–12 present but diffuse or capped · 13–19 concentrated in regulated interests · 20–25 concentrated and timed to committee action.

3 · Citizen Ask Gap (0–25). The distance between what the public asked this committee for and what it produced, measured against a named set of citizen-facing bills referred to it. 0–5 substantially delivered · 6–12 partially delivered · 13–19 not advanced · 20–25 not advanced and the opposite advanced instead.

4 · Blocker Mechanism (0–25). The specific technique used to stop citizen-facing legislation from reaching a vote — closed rule, discharge denial, calendar control, jurisdictional referral, markup exclusion — named and evidenced. Scored on outcome, not intent. Where a technique was used but the measure reached a vote anyway, this scores 0; the attempt is recorded under Citizen Ask Gap, where it belongs. 0 no blocker held · 1–8 delay without a named technique · 9–17 a named technique that held once · 18–25 a named technique applied systematically.

A zero on a criterion is a finding, not a gap. Where a committee let a citizen-facing bill reach a vote, Blocker Mechanism scores 0 and the total falls accordingly. That is the instrument working.

Bands: 80–100 Deeply Captured · 65–79 High Capture · 50–64 Moderate Capture · 35–49 Emerging Capture · 0–34 Low Capture. One scheme, used on every card.

What this instrument cannot see. The Capture Score counts campaign contributions to committee leadership. It does not count lobbying spend, and for some sectors that is where nearly all the money is: no contributions from the major pesticide manufacturers appear in the examined agriculture chairs' 2026 filings, while one of those manufacturers spent $9.19M lobbying in 2025. A low Funder Alignment score may mean an industry is spending somewhere this instrument does not look. Independent expenditures and 501(c)(4) spending are outside candidate filings entirely and are not counted here.

Only majority chairs. Funder Alignment is scored primarily on the chair, and every chair in the 119th Congress is a Republican because the majority holds every chair. An index that scores chairs therefore examines one party's members. That is a consequence of how Congress is organised, not a judgement about either party, and it would invert with the chamber.

Rescoring in progress (September 4, 2026). This rubric was published on September 4, 2026. Twelve committees are scored under it: House Agriculture and House Administration, rescored on September 4, and the ten committees added the same day, scored under the rubric from the start. The remaining twenty-five scores were assigned under the earlier, unstated method and are being reviewed. Where a card carries a “pending verification” note, a specific FEC or lobbying data point remains under verification and the score may adjust.

Data Sources & Coverage

Primary sources are cited in each committee's source strip. The instrument draws from: OpenSecrets (committee member donor profiles, industry classifications, top contributors), FEC filings (PAC contribution dollar amounts and timing), Congress.gov and committee hearing calendars (bill status, markup records, hearing records), FARA disclosures (revolving-door confirmation, registered lobbyist clients), House and Senate Clerk filings (roll call votes, committee votes), and coalition legislative registers (the documented citizen-serving bill set the committee's record is scored against).

There are 36 standing committees in the 119th Congress — 20 House and 16 Senate. 37 committees are currently scored: 34 standing committees plus three select committees with legislative jurisdiction (House Intelligence, Senate Intelligence, Senate Indian Affairs). Inclusion requires (1) jurisdiction over a high-consequence citizen policy domain, (2) sufficient public financial documentation to support a defensible score, (3) an active legislative record in the 119th Congress, and (4) a legible capital-versus-citizen gap readable from public records. The two standing committees not yet scored are House Ethics and House Homeland Security, both of which render without a score pending research. Appropriations is represented as a joint card with its own analytical framework because its capture dynamic operates through subcommittee structure and bundling. The intelligence committees carry lower scores partly because classified operations limit the documentable record — not because capture evidence is absent. If a committee that belongs in this register is absent, that is a research gap — not a finding of clean hands.

Nonpartisan Note

The Capture Index does not measure partisan alignment. Captured committees exist under both Republican and Democratic leadership — both parties appear in this record. The instrument measures institutional behavior: the gap between what citizens ask for and what the institution produces. Where leadership has shifted between Congresses, the pattern persists. Capture is structural, not ideological.

The methodology is applied identically regardless of which party holds the gavel. Where a committee shows a low Capture Score, it is because the documented evidence does not support a higher one — not because its leadership is favored. Where a committee shows a high Capture Score, it is because the record of donor alignment and citizen ask gap is documentable — not because its leadership is disfavored. The record is the finding.