def list_active_legislators_first(): query = 'select bioguide_id from bioguide_legislatorrole group by bioguide_id order by max(end_date) desc, bioguide_id' from MySQLdb import Connection cursor = Connection('localhost', 'capwords', 'capwords', 'capwords').cursor() cursor.execute(query) results = [x[0] for x in cursor.fetchall()] return results