def _normalize(self, name):
        """
        Normalizes a legislator name by stripping titles from the front,
        converting to lowercase and removing punctuation.
        """
        name = re.sub(
            r'^(Senator|Representative|Sen\.?|Rep\.?|'
            'Hon\.?|Right Hon\.?|Mr\.?|Mrs\.?|Ms\.?|L\'hon\.?|'
            'Assembly(member|man|woman)) ',
            '',
            name)
        return name.strip().lower().replace('.', '')