Legislative Actions as of 5/9/2011
Last Updated 5/13/2011
We did an overview of the session from a Pachyderm Coalition rating perspective. Of legislation that passed the legislature, we supported 129 bills and opposed 16 for a percentage of 89%. When these were adjusted by the weights assigned to the bills, the percentage was slightly higher at 93% which meant that we were more successful, on average, with the bills that were more important to us. Also, there were 38 bills we opposed that did not pass in the legislature. The average scores of the legislators were good this session which reflected passing a good budget and probably also increased party discipline due to having larger majorities. The performance of Senators compared to Representatives, overall, was very comparable.
This year, we decided that it was important to add one more important player in the legislative process to our ratings: the Governor, Jan Brewer. We calculated her score after the session ended. After the governor decided which bills sent to her desk would become law and which she would veto, we applied our scoring to the Governor’s actions. For all bills sent by the legislature to the Governor, we considered signing the bill or allowing it to become law without signing would be considered as a YES vote while a veto would be considered a NO vote. The Governor either signed or vetoed all bills from the Regular Session – she did not allow a bill to become law without her signature. Signing a bill we positively weighted would increase her score and vetoing it would reduce her score. For negatively weighted bills, signing decreased her score and vetoing increased her score. As with the legislators, she was rated only on the actions she could take in the legislative process by a specific, recordable action. For the legislators, it is votes. For the Governor, it is allowing bills sent to her to become law or to veto them. Of the bills we were tracking, the Governor’s vetoed 20 bills we supported and 1 bill we opposed. She signed 109 bills we supported and 15 bills we opposed.
Governor Jan Brewer’s Pachyderm score is 56.7 which we label as Republican. This is substantially below the average scores of Republican Senators and Representatives at 81.3. It is, in fact, below the score of ANY Republican legislator – the lowest is 60.6. Governor Jan Brewer is the lowest scoring Republican in the state’s legislative process.
For additional information about the ratings, visit the Pachyderm Coalition website.
2011 Arizona State Senate Rankings:
2011 Arizona State House Rankings:
Sorry Pachyderm, you’ve sold out.
You rate clearly ANTI freedom Republicans as pro freedom. What rating do you use?
So, those “pro freedom” republicans on your list who voted for the “jobs” bill/Arizona Commerce Authority are “pro freedom”, yeah, I guess if like Democrats you consider socialism to be freedom.
Pachyderm, your credibility is GONE.
They’re all a bunch of RINOs!!!, very single one of them.
I’d still like to know what “coalition” in the name of this group means.
John McComish is last on the list of Senators, yes we all know why. I am here and now asking Jeff Dial to step up to the plate and run against McComish, Jeff you have proven yourself to be an excellent conservative.
As pointed out before, McComish has become little more than Carolyn Allen in drag!
You sir have got to be kidding! Jeff never reads a bill, he’s much too interested in finding a date for the weekend. Good grief.
Maybe when :Jeff Dial grows up and learns to read what he votes for rather than pulling up on his ipad the weighting that the Pachy’s have assigned a bill before he decides to vote for it or against it, maybe then you might consider him material for higher office.
Its really absurd those in the House and Senate who use their PDAs and ipads to look up how the bill is rated before they decide to vote on it. Add to them the members who play “follow the leader” and you have an idea what half of the Republican delegation is all about.
Jeff for Senate? Maybe in Hatti he’d make a fine Senator but NOT in Arizona!
Well, given the lineage of staffers Chuck Coughlin and Grant Woods, Governor Jan has graduated from Republican to “Maverick” status!
JeffDial is hardly ready for prime time..get real. He is the only Republican legislator I know who has been kicked out of the ASU college Republican club!