To: All quants in the political science field (data scientist + political scientist + statistician + anti-polarization bias)
From: Brad Porteus, founder www.BridgePledge.org
RE: “Second Generation Bridge Grade” (paid project - $2500)
Date: April 4, 2024

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CONTEXT / BACKGROUND
I’m a social entrepreneur working on a civic innovation which is anchored on a data-rich political candidate assessment framework that grades each candidate on their non-ideological capabilities to find and develop consensus political solutions. This memo outlines a project to solicit submissions from quantitative experts in the political science field to construct and sharpen such a candidate grading system and platform.

Bridge Pledge is a pre-launch anti-polarization initiative that intends to soft-launch during the upcoming 2024 election cycle. There are two core parts to Bridge Pledge:

Bridge Grade is an objective sorting mechanism that measures the collaborative, coalition-building, and pragmatic leadership behaviors of every political representative. Bridge Grade is a letter grade (A, B, C, F) that pinpoints “Bridger” candidates with the integrity to construct consensus win-win solutions. Bridge Grade systematically identifies the all-stars from both parties.

Bridge Pledge is a cross-partisan citizen voting alliance of R, D, and I voters who all agree to always vote for the most consensus oriented leader from either party (highest Bridge Grade). As a swing bloc, “Pledgers” (from both sides) agree to elect Bridger all-stars (from both sides) to represent our common interests, regardless of ideology.

This project is to solicit multiple submissions for Bridge Grade specifically. The organization’s intent is to evaluate multiple submissions and move forward with either the best submission, or a combination of the best parts of multiple submissions.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Bridge Pledge is seeking experts to assist in the creation of a mathematically robust Bridge Grade – data-oriented method to sort political candidates on a spectrum that measures their “bridging” characteristics and behaviors. Bridge Pledge is seeking to engage with up to four individual experts to build and propose Bridge Grade models to our advisory board in June.

A preliminary  “proof of concept” version of Bridge Grade has been constructed, and your submission will take the concept to a higher level (more data inputs, more robust mathematics).

This  “Second Generation Bridge Grade” project design is to utilize multiple publicly available 3rd party data-sources and aggregate into a “sanitation” grade (A, B, C, F) for each politician.

Initial focus will be the sitting 435 members of the House of Representatives, 100 US Senators, and 50 state Governors. Follow up focus will be on their challengers in the 2024 election cycle.

The ideal output is a statistically robust index. First Generation Bridge Grade uses a grading rubric that provides As and Bs to those above the median, and Cs and Fs for those below the median. As and Fs are one standard deviation from the median/mean.

Core principles of Bridge Grade:
- Objective / data-oriented
- Transparent / open-source 
- Aggressively non-ideological
- Wisdom of crowds - utilizes blend of data inputs (signal vs noise)
- Adaptive over time as new data sources are introduced

Measures
- Rewards nuance, trade-offs, partnering, coalition building, consensus building behaviors (win-win)
- Rewards civility, respect, language that unites
- Rewards cross-partisan actions (voting records, bill authoring, public actions)
- Punishes divisive bullying, use of ad hominem attacks (person vs. idea)
- Rewards integrity (financial dealings, legal compliance, pro-truth)
- Punishes one-dimensional thinking / behavior (zero-sum game)
- More inspiration below

Proposed data inputs:
- Soon forthcoming Polarization Research Lab dataset on candidate’s bridging behaviors
- Common Ground Scorecard scores
- Cook Political PVI index on district partisan lean (reward bravery for bridgers in polarized districts)
- Reward bi-partisan initiatives (e.g. member of Problem Solvers Caucus, etc)
- Extremely open to include multiple other publicly available, objective data sources to tease out the signal vs. noise.

The assignment is to build a transparent data model and Bridge Grade “algorithm” to assess these three chambers of government (house, senate, governors).
 
Deliverables
- Inputs. Identify, collect, and aggregate multiple objective, publicly available data sources, as measurable inputs to non-ideological bridging behaviors.
- Algorithm. Construct a system to weigh the inputs.
Outputs. 
- Spreadsheet of Bridge Scores with a table including  each of the 585 sitting politicians (House, Senate, Governors) indexed on a scale from 0-100. 
- Calculate a Bridge Grade (A, B, C, F) for each based on the Bridge Score. Note: Indexes can be unique to each category and needn’t be comparable across politician type.
- Objective Analysis. Disclose strengths and weaknesses in your model and approach, for both sitting politicians as well as potential challengers.
- Documentation. Clear and well documented data sources. Clarity on the logic of the algorithm (with logic and explanation on inputs, weights).

Budget: $2500 per pre-approved submission (total 4 submissions from different parties) 
(NOTE: United States IRS Form W-9 required to receive payment!)

Proposed timeline:
- Apply to participate (now through the end of April). Those selected will have a briefing with Brad to get started.
- Draft submissions mid-May (Brad to provide feedback within 48 hours)
- Final submission due May 31.

How to apply:
- Read  this article (on Medium - no registration required) [https://bporteus.medium.com/a-pledge-to-bridge-americas-divide-41642e41e8e2] and make sure you understand Bridge Grade and version 1.0 of the Bridge Grade.
- Email Brad Porteus and indicate your interest in “Second Generation Bridge Grade”
- Share why this project interests you, and what experience you bring to the project
- Ask any questions you have to clarify the assignment.
- For more information and to , please contact Brad Porteus ([log in to unmask])

More here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IDU7NRta5dHfhDJWtibm38_ljppS18HInv1ArTcjA6U/edit

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