Composite 5.13 / 10, weighted per the Constitutional Weight Schedule.
Below the 700 bar, Author's Verdict: not supported.
Lands in the honest middle, Adequate, but short of the support threshold on a still-short record. McCormick earns real credit for the accountability work most of his peers ducked: he kept holding open town halls through 2025 and stood in front of hostile crowds rather than hiding. He was not in Congress for the January 6 2021 certification or the December 2020 Texas v. Pennsylvania amicus (first seated January 2023), so no process-subversion flag attaches. But the composite is held down by a STOCK Act disclosure failure, roughly two dozen trades reported about two and a half years late, with no substantive office response, a thin record of breaking with his own side at cost, and contested constituent-facing remarks weighed as tone. No capping flag; the verdict is non-support on score, not on character disqualification, and is open to revision as the record lengthens.
- Marine Corps naval aviator, CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter pilot
- Marine Officer Instructor (Georgia Tech / Morehouse); airborne, attached to Army and foreign forces
- U.S. Navy emergency-medicine physician; Department Head, ER, Kandahar, Afghanistan
- Service in Africa, South Korea, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf
Service is honored here as context, not as a score. Any character demonstrated within it is scored as conduct in the measures where it belongs; the uniform does not move the composite.
The 14 measures
Each measure is scored 0–10 against an anchored example, with a cited source. Hover/expand why? for the reasoning.
| # | Measure | Score | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| M01 | Duty to Constitution & Rule of Law | 6 | why?Oath-fidelity scored on conduct, not party votes. McCormick was not seated until January 2023, so he
cast no vote on the January 6 2021 electoral-count objections and could not have signed the December 2020
Texas v. Pennsylvania amicus, no process-subversion conduct attaches to him. His later remarks musing
that the National Guard "should have been deployed" on Jan 6 are retrospective commentary, not an attempt
to relitigate a certified result. No documented conduct defeating a constitutional purpose; held at a
solid middle for an unremarkable but clean separation-of-powers record.
[source] |
| M02 | Party Over Country | 5 | why?A reliably Republican voting member with a thin cross-aisle legislative footprint; GovTrack places him as
a fairly conventional partisan with limited bipartisan cosponsorship. No documented instances of placing
institution over party at cost, but also no obstruction-for-its-own-sake pattern. Honest middle.
[source] |
| M03 | Persons of Equal Worth | 5 | why?Persons-of-equal-worth, conduct only. The high-mark conduct is that he repeatedly faced jeering crowds in
person rather than casting constituents as the enemy. The drag is a set of sharp constituent-facing
remarks (children on free lunch should "go work at McDonald's") that read as dismissive of low-income
families; weighed as tone and dignity, not as a documented anti-belonging campaign, and mitigated by his
on-record walk-back ("Of course not" when asked if all such kids should be cut off). The substance of the
policy is not scored in either direction. Net middle.
[source] |
| M04 | Weaponization of Justice | 6 | why?No documented weaponization of state power against rivals, no abuse-of-office conduct, no criterion-class
pattern. Clean on the no-abuse axis; held at a middle-high pending a longer record.
[source] |
| M05 | Incitement / Anti-Belonging | 5 | why?Rhetorical conduct is combative-but-engaged rather than incendiary. He absorbed hostile town halls without
a documented pattern of branding opponents as enemies. The contested free-lunch and DOGE-defense remarks
are heated and at times tone-deaf toward constituents, but fall on the policy-heat side of the line, not
sustained incitement. Middle, with the drag noted.
[source] |
| M06 | Fiduciary Conduct | 4 | why?The clearest fiduciary drag on the record. OpenSecrets and NOTUS documented that McCormick reported roughly
two dozen individual stock purchases from March 2023 (worth between ~$24,000 and ~$360,000) about two and a
half years past the STOCK Act's 45-day periodic-transaction-report deadline, defeating the
contemporaneous-disclosure purpose that lets the public check for conflicts. His office did not substantively
respond to inquiries. A genuine transparency-and-appearance failure with no documented affirmative
accountability yet; weighed as an appearance-concern, not a finding of self-dealing.
[source] |
| M07 | Duty to Call Out | 4 | why?The active-duty standard is calling out one's OWN side at cost. McCormick will engage hostile audiences and
acknowledge hard tradeoffs (AI "disruptions," uncertainty about Jan 6 Guard deployment), but the record shows
little of him publicly breaking with his own party or the administration when it would cost him. Below middle
for the absence of demonstrated own-side accountability, not for any affirmative violation.
[source] |
| M08 | The Discretion Test | 5 | why?Discretion test. No documented instance of using a moment of unchecked discretion either for clear
self-sacrifice or for self-dealing; the STOCK Act lateness is scored under M06/M11 rather than here.
Insufficient documented discretion-conduct to move off the middle.
[source] |
| M09 | The No-Camera Test | 5 | why?No documented private-versus-public contempt gap; his combative public posture appears to match his private
one, and he did not hide from constituents the way many peers did. No hypocrisy finding; honest middle.
[source] |
| M10 | Constituent-vs-Donor Vote | 5 | why?Constituent-fidelity conduct. Credit for continuing to hold open, in-person town halls when national party
committees reportedly urged members to stop, that is accessibility at some political cost. Offset by a
voting and rhetorical posture frequently at odds with the constituents in the room. Net middle.
[source] |
| M11 | Net-Worth Trajectory | 5 | why?Scored ONLY on office-attributable enrichment, not raw wealth. There is no documented finding of self-dealing, family payments, office-information trading, or foreign-government revenue. The active stock trading paired
with a two-and-a-half-year disclosure lapse is an appearance-concern about whether trades could conflict with
committee duties (Armed Services, Science), weighed as appearance, not as a proven enrichment breach. The
transparency failure itself is penalized under M06. Middle.
[source] |
| M12 | Floor Decorum | 6 | why?Institutional decorum is ordinary-to-good: a low missed-vote rate (~1.2%, better than the chamber median),
regular committee work, and a willingness to do the unglamorous town-hall labor of the office. No documented
stunts or institutional-norm violations. Solid middle-high.
[source] |
| M13 | Lying & Misleading | 5 | why?No documented sustained-falsehood pattern. His contested remarks are framed as opinion and policy argument
rather than fabricated factual claims, and he has at times conceded limits on his own framing under
questioning. No truth-pattern finding; honest middle.
[source] |
| M14 | Knowledge Depth | 6 | why?Substantive command in his domains: an emergency-medicine physician and 20-plus-year Marine/Navy officer
serving on Armed Services, Oversight, and Science, Space and Technology, where his medical and military
background is directly relevant. Demonstrates subject-matter substance over pure talking points; held at a
middle-high pending a longer legislative record of his own authorship.
[source] |
Why not higher, the points withheld
The standard is the seat; the ceiling is a perfect 10. Every withheld point traces to documented conduct, weighed where the measures and attributes say it belongs, shown openly here, the same way the earned points are.
| Where | Documented conduct | Mitigation weighed |
|---|---|---|
| M06 | Reported ~24 individual stock purchases from March 2023 (worth ~$24,024-$360,000) roughly 2.5 years past the STOCK Act 45-day PTR deadline; office did not substantively respond ↳ Fiduciary transparency / appearance-of-conflict | Disclosure-timeliness failure, not a documented self-dealing finding; weighed as appearance-concern |
| M03 | Sharp constituent-facing remarks (children on free lunch should 'go work at McDonald's') read as dismissive of low-income families ↳ Persons of Equal Worth, dignity/tone drag | On-record walk-back ('Of course not'); policy substance not scored; not a documented anti-belonging pattern |
| M07 | Little documented public breaking with his own side or the administration at personal cost ↳ Active own-side accountability, absence, not violation | Does engage hostile audiences and acknowledge hard tradeoffs |
| M02 | Thin cross-aisle legislative footprint; conventional partisan cosponsorship profile ↳ Country/institution-over-party, not demonstrated at cost | No obstruction-for-its-own-sake pattern either |
| Pillar IV | The STOCK Act lapse leaves an unanswered transparency asterisk on an otherwise clean early record ↳ Integrity/Stewardship drag | No proven enrichment; a timeliness failure, owned-or-not still open |
The Four Pillars, worthy to be followed?
A separate axis from the 14 measures. The measures ask did their conduct meet the standard; the Pillars ask is this someone worthy to be elevated and followed at all. The two can diverge, when they do, the divergence is the finding.
| # | Pillar | Score | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | Trust & Loyalty
| 6 | why?Attributes: Courage, Steadiness Under Pressure, he stood in front of hostile, jeering town-hall crowds rather than hiding, which is genuine civic courage. Held at a solid middle by a thin record of loyalty to institution over party when it would cost him. |
| II | Aspiration & Integrity
| 5 | why?Attributes: Authenticity, Conviction, consistent and unhidden in his views, with at least one on-record concession under questioning. Dragged toward the opposites by the STOCK Act disclosure lapse and an unanswered office response, which is a Self-Reflection/Accountability gap. |
| III | Protection & Influence
| 6 | why?Attributes: Accessibility, Stewardship, credit for continuing open town halls when party leadership reportedly discouraged them. No documented Exploitation; the trading-disclosure appearance-concern keeps it from rising higher. |
| IV | Legacy & Virtue
| 5 | why?Attributes: Integrity, Duty, a clean early record on the no-abuse and no-incitement axes. The transparency asterisk (late stock reporting) and dismissive constituent remarks are real drags toward Carelessness/Favoritism that temper the legacy mark. |
| TOTAL: Weak | 22/40 |
Total 22/40, Adequate. An honest middle: real civic courage in facing constituents and a clean process-subversion record, offset by a documented disclosure failure and a thin own-side-accountability record on a still-short tenure.
What the Four Pillars are & the questions behind each →
In their own words
“You're telling me that kids who stay at home instead of going to work at Burger King, McDonald's during the summer, should stay at home and get their free lunch instead of going to work?”
CNN interview on school-lunch programs; later conceded the standard did not apply to all children · CNN interview / MSNBC, Yahoo News coverage 2025 · CONTESTED · cite
“There was probably a strong case that the National Guard should have been deployed.”
Town hall, reflecting retrospectively on January 6 2021 (McCormick was not in Congress at the time) · WESA town-hall coverage Sept 2025 · CIVIC · cite
“McCormick faced an angry crowd... where many constituents lashed out at the Republican lawmaker, and he kept taking questions.”
Roswell/Georgia town hall; held open town halls when many peers stopped · CNN / NBC News coverage Feb 2025 · ACCOUNTABILITY · cite
Full personnel file
1. Identity
Richard Dean McCormick (born 1968, Las Vegas). U.S. Representative for Georgia, GA-6 2023-2025, GA-7 from 2025. Republican. Emergency-medicine physician (Morehouse School of Medicine 2010; Emory residency 2017). Over 20 years of military service as a U.S. Marine Corps CH-53E helicopter pilot and Marine Officer Instructor, and as a U.S. Navy ER physician (Commander), including ER Department Head in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Serves on House Armed Services, Oversight, and Science, Space and Technology Committees.
2. Voting / Legislative Profile
A conventionally Republican voting member with a low missed-vote rate (~1.2%, better than chamber median) and a thin cross-aisle legislative footprint per GovTrack. First seated January 2023 representing GA-6; redistricted to GA-7 for 2025; running for a third term in 2026 without primary opposition. Committee work concentrated in Armed Services, Oversight, and Science, Space and Technology, aligned with his military and medical background. Policy positions are not scored in either direction under this framework.
3. Constitutional Moments
McCormick was not a member of Congress on January 6, 2021, so he cast no vote on the electoral-count objections and could not have signed the December 2020 Texas v. Pennsylvania amicus, no process-subversion conduct attaches. His documented institutional conduct is ordinary: regular committee service, a willingness to hold open town halls amid hostile crowds, and retrospective (not relitigating) commentary on Jan 6 security failures. No documented conduct defeating a constitutional purpose.
4. Rhetoric & Discourse Profile
Combative-but-engaged rather than incendiary. The high mark is his repeated willingness to stand in front of jeering town-hall audiences and keep answering. The documented drag is a set of sharp constituent-facing remarks, most prominently the free-school-lunch "go work at McDonald's" framing, that read as dismissive of low-income families. Weighed as tone and dignity (with an on-record walk-back), it falls on the policy-heat side of the line, not sustained enemy-making or incitement.
5. Fiduciary Profile
The central fiduciary concern is a STOCK Act violation: OpenSecrets and NOTUS documented in September 2025 that McCormick reported roughly two dozen individual stock purchases from March 2023, worth between ~$24,000 and ~$360,000, about two and a half years past the law's 45-day periodic-transaction-report deadline, defeating the contemporaneous-disclosure purpose. His office did not substantively respond. This is a transparency and appearance-of-conflict failure (M06), not a documented finding of self-dealing or office-information trading (which would be M11). No proven office-driven enrichment is on the record.
6. Severity-Class Conduct
No documented Severity-class conduct under any of the eight criteria. He was not seated in time for the Dec 2020 Texas v. Pennsylvania amicus or the Jan 6 2021 certification, so no process-subversion (criterion 8) flag attaches, and the record shows no sustained enemy-making or incitement pattern (criterion 10), only contested policy-heat remarks. The STOCK Act lateness is a fiduciary appearance-concern, not a severity flag. Flag count: zero.
7. What The Framework Says
An honest middle on conduct, landing Adequate but short of support. McCormick earns genuine credit for the unglamorous accountability work most of his peers avoided, standing in front of hostile constituents and continuing to hold open town halls when party committees reportedly urged otherwise, and for a clean record on the process-subversion and incitement axes, partly because he simply was not in Congress for the 2020-2021 events that snared others. The standard records the real drags that keep him below the threshold: a two-and-a-half-year STOCK Act disclosure failure with no substantive office response, a thin record of breaking with his own side at cost, and contested constituent-facing remarks weighed as tone. Non-support on score, not a character disqualification, no capping flag, with the transparency asterisk left open and the verdict open to revision as a short record lengthens.
8. Sources & Where To Look Deeper
Tier 1 (primary): Congress.gov member record · House clerk member page
Tier 2: OpenSecrets, STOCK Act reporting (Sept 2025) · NOTUS, STOCK Act violation reporting · GovTrack ideology/leadership · CNN, Feb 2025 town hall
Research links: Congress.gov member profile · Ballotpedia · GovTrack · OpenSecrets summary · Wikipedia
Scores derive from the fixed Constitutional Weight Schedule. The bar does not move. Conduct, not party.