Legislative regular session rankings, 2013

And so the session is complete, save an unprecedented and would be miraculous veto override session being called. Thus, it’s time to compute the voting scorecard for the 2013 session. Twelve issues were selected and weighed for computation, all but two having been voted upon in both chambers. These were chosen mostly from the watch list compiled throughout the session, along with others of some importance. For a bill’s vote(s) to be selected, in both chambers 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:

BOTH CHAMBERS

HB 8 – keeps criminals from targeting defenseless households by prohibiting publishing whether an address was associated with a concealed carry permit; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

HB 111 – would have expanded marginally no smoking areas to within 25 feet of entrances to many state-owned buildings; a conservative/reform vote is for (5 percent)

HB 174 – permits generous salary increases to the generous salaries to elected clerks of court in times of tight budgets; a conservative/reform vote is against (10 percent)

HB 532 – amends the Constitution to allow for increased hospital fees to be charged and passed on indirectly to consumers so the state can draw more Medicaid money; a conservative/reform vote is against (5 percent)

HB 533 – amends the Constitution to decrease budgetary flexibility and make higher education and certain medical providers more vulnerable to cuts; a conservative/reform vote is against (5 percent)

HB 653 – reduces on-time payment bonus for retailers forced to collect state sales taxes that may be passed on to consumers; a conservative/reform vote is against (10 percent)

HB 703 – creates an arbitrary employment qualification burden by requiring some employees but not others to have a Louisiana driver’s license and car registration; a conservative/reform vote is against (5 percent)

SB 61 – excepts certain elected officials needlessly from some ethics laws; a conservative/reform vote is against (10 percent)

SB 63 – permits generous salary increases to elected assessors in times of tight budgets; a conservative/reform vote is against (10 percent)

SB 90 – increases women’s protection when they undergo abortion; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

SB 117 – would have created a body to formulate performance-based standards for higher education; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

HOUSE ONLY

HB 233 – would have expanded Medicaid eligibility that compared to current policy would have increased taxpayer costs and reduced outcome quality; a conservative/reform vote is against (10 percent)

SENATE ONLY

SB 259 – would have put the state firefighters’ pension system on more solid footing; a conservative/reform vote is for (10 percent)

Running the numbers, here are the 2013 Louisiana Legislature Log voting scores, beginning with the House:

Ivey	100	Republican
Simon	95	Republican
Whitney	90	Republican
Hodges	85	Republican
Connick	80	Republican
Stokes	80	Republican
Fannin	75	Democrat
Greene	75	Republican
Landry, N	75	Republican
Burns, T	70	Republican
Carter	70	Republican
Cromer	70	Republican
Geymann	70	Republican
Hollis	70	Republican
Kleckley	70	Republican
Ponti	70	Republican
Talbot	70	Republican
Champagne	67	Republican
Seabaugh	65	Republican
Adams	65	Republican
Bishop, S	65	Republican
Burns, H	65	Republican
Garafalo	65	Republican
Harris	65	Republican
Lorusso	65	Republican
Miller	65	Republican
Morris, Jim	65	Republican
Wilmott	65	Republican
Barras	60	Republican
Dove	60	Republican
Foil	60	Republican
Hensgens	60	Republican
Lopinto	60	Republican
Morris, Jay	60	Republican
Pearson	60	Republican
Richard	60	Independent
Robideaux	60	Republican
Schroder	56	Republican
Abramson	55	Democrat
Billiot	55	Democrat
Broadwater	55	Republican
Burford	55	Republican
Carmody	55	Republican
Chaney	55	Republican
Armes	50	Democrat
Hoffman	50	Republican
Pugh	50	Republican
Thibaut	50	Democrat
Henry	50	Republican
Badon	45	Democrat
Danahay	45	Democrat
Harrison	45	Republican
Havard	45	Republican
Leger	45	Democrat
Leopold	45	Republican
Pope	45	Republican
Pylant	45	Republican
Thompson	45	Republican
Guinn	40	Republican
Hazel	40	Republican
Lambert	40	Republican
Shadoin	40	Republican
Huval	39	Republican
Berthelot	35	Republican
Bishop, W	35	Democrat
Brown, Terry	35	Independent
Gisclair	35	Democrat
Howard	35	Republican
Jones	35	Democrat
Mack	35	Republican
Schexnayder	35	Republican
Norton	30	Democrat
Ortego	30	Democrat
Guillory, M	26	Democrat
Anders	25	Democrat
Arnold	25	Democrat
Cox	25	Democrat
Dixon	25	Democrat
Edwards	25	Democrat
Hill	25	Democrat
Honore	25	Democrat
James	25	Democrat
LeBas	25	Democrat
Moreno	25	Democrat
Reynolds	25	Democrat
Ritchie	25	Democrat
Smith	25	Democrat
St. Germain	25	Democrat
Williams, P.	25	Democrat
Jackson, G	21	Democrat
Jackson, K	20	Democrat
Johnson	20	Democrat
Montoucet	20	Democrat
Pierre	20	Democrat
Barrow	15	Democrat
Brossett	15	Democrat
Burrell	15	Democrat
Franklin	15	Democrat
Gaines	15	Democrat
Hunter	15	Democrat
Jefferson	15	Democrat
Price	15	Democrat
Thierry	11	Democrat
Landry, T	10	Democrat
Williams, A.	5	Democrat

Note that the only “perfect” score came from one of only two rookies, Rep. Barry Ivey. Not surprisingly, the second-highest Democrat is found only after 35 Republicans (and a no-party member) precede him, while 34 Democrats are below the lowest-scoring Republicans. But overall, at a score of 45.71 this was (barely) the lowest-scoring House since the ratings began in 2004, bringing the decade-long average down to 51.92. While the Republican average of 59.85 was their lowest ever (decade average of 68.30), it was only the second-lowest ever for Democrats at 27.41 (decade average of 37.29). The partisan gap of 31.08 actually was over a point lower than the decade average.

And now for the Senate:

Riser	90	Republican
Appel	70	Republican
Crowe	70	Republican
Donahue	70	Republican
Johns	70	Republican
Peacock	70	Republican
Walsworth	70	Republican
Claitor	65	Republican
Perry	65	Republican
Smith, J	63	Republican
Morrish	60	Republican
Long	56	Republican
Adley	55	Republican
Cortez	55	Republican
Smith, G	55	Democrat
Allain	50	Republican
Guillory, E	50	Republican
Martiny	50	Republican
White	50	Republican
Chabert	45	Republican
Mills	45	Republican
Nevers	45	Democrat
Alario	40	Republican
LaFleur	36	Democrat
Amedee	35	Republican
Buffington	35	Republican
Gallot	35	Democrat
Kostelka	35	Republican
Peterson	35	Democrat
Thompson	35	Democrat
Brown, Troy	33	Democrat
Tarver	30	Democrat
Ward	30	Democrat
Morrell	29	Democrat
Broome	25	Democrat
Dorsey-Colomb	25	Democrat
Erdey	15	Republican
Heitmeier	15	Democrat
Murray	5	Democrat

Again, the distribution is not very noteworthy, with 14 Republicans preceding the first Democrat in terms of high value of score, although GOP Sen. Dale Erdey showed himself to be a real outlier by tying for the second-lowest score. The average of 46.43 also was a little below the decade average of 49.25, with Republicans averaging 55.12 (decade average of 60.66) and Democrats averaging 30.90 (decade average 39.34). This produced a partisan gap of 24.22, about three points above the decade norm.

Regarding the Legislature as a whole, the more liberal/populist tone of the House while not typical also is not unusual over the past decade, although the -0.72 gap House-to-Senate in absolute terms was the smallest ever. The overall 45.90 average was the third-lowest ever, well below the decade norm of 51.23. As a whole, Republicans averaged 58.42 (decade average of 66.16) and Democrats averaged 28.24 (decade average of 37.97) for a partisan gap of 30.18, about two points above the decade norm.

Finally, in evaluating Gov. Bobby Jindal, since HB 111, HB 233, SB 117, and SB 259 never made it to his desk, and that HB 532 and HB 533 are constitutional amendment propositions that the governor does not deal with, his score is computed without these, which does magnify the impact of the remaining votes for score computation. And turned out to be by far the least conservative/reform of his six years at score of 46 . Of course, no doubt he had a hand in stopping liberal/populist legislation form ever getting to him or even coming to a vote, and he did stop a retrenchment of ethics standards, but when allowing higher salaries for local officials, approving of a useless if not counterproductive restriction on employment, and allowing for reduction of a tax credit bonus for acting as tax collector for the state, this pushed his decisions on recorded matters into the slightly liberal/populist camp.