Legislative regular session scores, 2018

And so it comes to this: revealing the 2018 Regular Session on the Louisiana Legislature voting scorecard. With all business disposed of, legislators and the governor receive grades (barring a miraculous veto override session). Eleven bills were selected and weighed for computation, all but two having been voted upon in both chambers. These were chosen from the watch list compiled throughout the session. For a bill’s vote(s) to be selected, in one chamber there had to be more than one legislator not voting for the winning or losing side.

Being that passage of bills depends upon the seated membership of a body, not voting is counted as a negative vote. However, if a legislator had a leave of absence granted for that day, his absent votes weren’t counted for bills voted on that day and the score adjusted to take that into account.

Here are the bills with votes for final passage in every case on which the scorecard was computed, with the conservative/reform position and the weighing indicated:

HB 54 – would make for more realistic recall provisions; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

HB 88 – would create greater disincentive to commit benefits fraud; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

HB 265 – would weaken incentives for felon reform; a conservative/reform vote is against (15 percent)

HB 321 – would increase government transparency; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

HB 413 – would raise TOPS standards and create a transfer award; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

HB 579 – would expand needlessly medical marijuana; a conservative/reform vote is against (5 percent)

HB 823 – would remove an oversight opportunity from the medical marijuana program; a conservative/reform vote is against (5 percent)

HB 891 – would prevent abortion providers from funneling indirectly public dollars to the practice; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

SB 364 – would strengthen free expression protections in higher education; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

SB 380 – would expand wastefully TOPS; a conservative/reform vote is against (10 percent)

SB 462 – would create incentives building more housing; a conservative/reform vote is for (15 percent)

The theme for the 2018 regular session seemed to be polarization, perhaps because of the stridency of Gov. John Bel Edwards’ insistence on funding larger government. Even as this blog doesn’t track the budget and tax measures can’t be considered during regular sessions in these even-numbered years, likely that conflict permeated to other issues.

One way this manifested was in the average legislator scores by party. Combining chambers, Republicans averaged over 79 while Democrats had a mean of under 37. Interestingly, only small inter-chamber differences emerged, with Republican senators fewer than three points lower than representatives, while Senate Democrats scored less than a point higher than their House co-partisans. Overall, this separated the chambers by a miniscule quarter-point.

However, the gap approaching 43 points isn’t a record, as 2012 saw a slightly wider margin. Still, the GOP average was the highest in history (going back to 2004), although Democrats have scored significantly lower three times, including last year.

Driving that Republican level was an unprecedented 12 representatives and five senators scoring 100 (none did last year). By contrast for Democrats, only state Sen. Yvonne Colomb scored zero – and that came from a single vote. On the other nine, she had an excused absence and didn’t vote. Among Democrats, only state Rep. Marcus Hunter scored in the single digits.

As another sign of polarization, of the House GOP only three Republicans scored below 50 while 43 Republicans scored higher than the highest-scoring Democrat, state Rep. Andy Anders. Only four other Democrats joined him scoring above 50. In two GOP cases, this could be explained by a number of missed votes. In the Senate, missed votes also explained the lowest scoring Republican, the only one below 50, state Sen. Ryan Gatti. Only three Democrats scored above 50, with the highest, state Sen. John Milkovich, outscored by 15 Republicans.

The House:

Bacala	100	Republican
Edmonds	100	Republican
Garafalo	100	Republican
Harris, L	100	Republican
Havard	100	Republican
Hazel	100	Republican
Hodges	100	Republican
Horton	100	Republican
Morris, Jim	100	Republican
Pugh	100	Republican
Pylant	100	Republican
Schexnayder	100	Republican
Amedee	95	Republican
Hilferty	95	Republican
Huval	95	Republican
Ivey	95	Republican
Stokes	95	Republican
DeVillier	90	Republican
Mack	90	Republican
Miguez	90	Republican
Muscarello	90	Republican
Seabaugh	90	Republican
Thomas	90	Republican
Davis	89	Republican
Crews	89	Republican
Bagley	85	Republican
Berthelot	85	Republican
Falconer	85	Republican
Magee	85	Republican
McFarland	85	Republican
Pearson	85	Republican
Stefanski	85	Republican
Wright	85	Republican
Barras	80	Republican
Brown, T	80	Independent
Carmody	80	Republican
Coussan	80	Republican
Henry	80	Republican
Landry, N	80	Republican
Simon	80	Republican
Morris, Jay	79	Republican
Emerson	75	Republican
Howard	75	Republican
Pope	75	Republican
Abraham	70	Republican
Anders	70	Democrat
Carter, S	70	Republican
Hoffman	70	Republican
Bishop, S	65	Republican
Chaney	65	Republican
Dwight	65	Republican
Foil	65	Republican
Guinn	65	Republican
Leopold	65	Republican
Miller, G	65	Republican
Talbot	65	Republican
Connick	60	Republican
Billiot	55	Democrat
Brown, C	55	Democrat
Reynolds	55	Democrat
White, M	55	Democrat
Zeringue	55	Republican
Danahay	50	Democrat
Gisclair	50	Democrat
Hill	50	Independent
Hollis	50	Republican
LeBas	50	Democrat
Norton	50	Democrat
Stagni	50	Republican
Marino	47	Independent
Richard	47	Independent
Carter, R	45	Democrat
Jones	45	Democrat
Thibaut	45	Democrat
Abramson	40	Democrat
Brass	40	Democrat
Carpenter	40	Democrat
Franklin	40	Democrat
Hall	40	Democrat
Harris, J	40	Democrat
Jackson	40	Democrat
Lyons	40	Democrat
Pierre	40	Democrat
Shadoin	35	Republican
Jenkins	35	Democrat
Armes	30	Democrat
Bouie	30	Democrat
Carter, G	30	Democrat
Cox	30	Democrat
Gaines	30	Democrat
Glover	30	Democrat
Hensgens	30	Republican
Johnson	30	Democrat
Jordan	30	Democrat
Landry, T	30	Democrat
Cromer	25	Republican
Duplessis	22	Democrat
Bagneris	20	Democrat
James	20	Democrat
Jefferson	20	Democrat
Leger	20	Democrat
Marcelle	20	Democrat
Miller, D	20	Democrat
Smith	10	Democrat
Hunter	5	Democrat

And the Senate:

Appel	100	Republican
Erdey	100	Republican
Hewitt	100	Republican
Peacock	100	Republican
Walsworth	100	Republican
Donahue	90	Republican
Lambert	89	Republican
Fannin	87	Republican
Long	85	Republican
Allain	80	Republican
Mizell	80	Republican
Claitor	75	Republican
Perry	75	Republican
Riser	75	Republican
Cortez	72	Republican
Alario	70	Republican
Milkovich	70	Democrat
White, B	70	Republican
Chabert	65	Republican
Johns	65	Republican
Mills	65	Republican
Smith, G	65	Democrat
Smith, J	65	Republican
Morrish	64	Republican
Martiny	60	Republican
Thompson	60	Democrat
Ward	55	Republican
Tarver	50	Democrat
Luneau	45	Democrat
Gatti	40	Republican
LaFleur	40	Democrat
Bishop, W	35	Democrat
Carter, T	30	Democrat
Morrell	30	Democrat
Price	30	Democrat
Barrow	25	Democrat
Boudreaux	22	Democrat
Peterson	20	Democrat
Colomb	0	Democrat

Finally, Edwards racked up a 44, which about fits his average of just under 47 for his three years. This makes him a bit less liberal/populist than the typical legislative Democrat, but much less conservative/reformist than the typical Republican legislator.

So, the Log bows out for another year.