These instructions demonstrate how to play Fantasy Congress using our automated online platform. Like most fantasy sports apps, Fantasy Congress will handle all the administration involved with tallying points, managing team lineups, and determining rankings. All you have to do is focus on creating the best team possible!
Check out this short “how to” video on creating leagues and playing Fantasy Congress:
Not interested in the online platform? You can learn how to run a Fantasy Congress league offline here.
Learn the lingo of Fantasy Congress.
Legislator or Member of Congress - An elected official currently serving in the U.S. House or Senate. (“Member of Congress” may be shortened to “Member”)
Player - Someone who plays Fantasy Congress.
League - Fantasy Congress is played in small groups called leagues. A league consists of 2 to 15 teams.
Team - The legislators attributed to a player or group of players. A team consists of 4 Senators and 6 Representatives. Members of Congress can only belong to one team per league.
Season - The time period in which you play Fantasy Congress. A season consists of a predefined number of full weeks.
Commissioner - The individual in charge of the league. This person determines who can play in the league, how long the season lasts, and sets other miscellaneous rules for the league. By default, the user that created the league will be its commissioner.
Drafting - The process of choosing legislators for your team. This occurs during a single event, often referred to as “the draft.”
Players select members of Congress for their team and acquire points based on data collected about the U.S. House and Senate. The player(s) whose team has the most points at the end of the season wins.
Below explains how legislators acquire points in Fantasy Congress:
Sign in to the platform here and create a league. Invite others to play via email.
Invited players can create their Fantasy Congress account here. On login, invited players will be prompted to accept or decline your league invite. Once a player has accepted their invite, they should create a team for the league.
Once all teams are created it’s time to draft. There are two methods for drafting. See the video above for a demonstration of each method.
Auto-draft: The platform will automatically assign legislators to each team. This is the fastest method for drafting (less than a minute).
Manual-draft: The commissioner will manually add legislators to each team. Depending on the number of teams you have, this can be a time consuming process. However, using this method you can ask each team who they would like to add to their roster. A popular approach for this is hosting a “snake draft”, where each team is asked to choose one legislator then the order is reversed until each team is full.
Once the draft is complete, the season begins!
The first full week immediately following the draft is the first week of the league’s “season”. Each week of the season, teams earn points based on their legislator’s accomplishments during that week. A team’s total points is the sum of its points earned each week.
For example: If Legislator A voted 10 times during Week 1 of the season, they would receive 30 points. (3pts for every vote x 10 = 30). Now, let’s say Legislator B got a total of 40 points during Week 1, and Legislator C received 20 points during Week 1. A team that consists of only these legislators would get a total of 90 points for Week 1 of the season.
To maximize points, players can swap legislators on their team for better ones. This is done by “dropping” a legislator from their team and “picking up” a member of congress that has not been claimed, or attempting to trade with another team. New team line ups do not take effect until the week following the swap. Line ups are “locked” on Saturdays at 8pm EST.
For example: Perhaps Legislator A is not performing well. During Week 3 of the season, you drop Legislator A and replace them with Legislator D (who does not belong to a team currently). When points are calculated for Week 3, your team will receive points for Legislator A but not for Legislator D (since this was the week the swap was made). As of Week 4 and going forward, however, you will receive points for Legislator D and no longer receive points for Legislator A.
At the end of the season, the team with the most points wins!
Fantasy Congress is a work in progress and your feedback is more than welcome! Send in your thoughts and questions here.