The Council Alignment Map
Who votes with the mayor — and who doesn't.
Every recorded vote of the 2022–2026 term, distilled. We measure how often each councillor lands on the same side as Olivia Chow, where the voting blocs are, and the handful of contested votes that actually decided things — all from the City's official record.
25
Councillors mapped
39–96%
Alignment range
10
Policy categories
Chow
The baseline
The spectrum
From the mayor's bloc to the opposition.
Each dot is a councillor, placed by how often they voted the same way as Olivia Chow on substantive motions. Tap any dot for their full record.
Neethan Shan (248 shared votes), Rachel Chernos Lin (539 shared votes) joined council via mid-term by-election, so their placement rests on a smaller sample than the ~1,000 shared votes of a full-term member.
Closest to Chow
Furthest from Chow
Served part of the 2022–2026 term
These members left council before the end of the term, so they aren’t placed on the spectrum above. Where shown, scores cover only the votes they shared with Olivia Chow.
Voting blocs
Who moves together.
Every councillor against every other. Darker teal means they voted the same way more often. Ordered by alignment with Olivia Chow, so the blocs form contiguous blocks.
The closest calls
The votes that actually split council.
Most council votes are lopsided or unanimous. These are the contested ones — close margins, full attendance — where individual councillors decided the outcome. Open any for the roll call.
How we built this
Alignment is the share of substantive motions where a councillor and Olivia Chow both cast a Yes/No vote and voted the same way. It's direction-agnostic: it measures agreement, not whether either was "right."
Categories are assigned to each motion from its title and originating committee — a deterministic keyword pass refined by a language model, with editorial review on top. A motion's topic is not an endorsement: a "Yes" can support or gut a housing item, which is why each topic shows the contested-only split — the votes that genuinely divided council.
Source & limits. Everything derives from the City Clerk's recorded-vote dataset. Only recorded votes appear — most procedural matters pass on a voice vote — so participation here is recorded-vote participation, not true attendance. Procedural motions are excluded from the topic charts.