Updated Ratings!!!

Arizona Conservative Coalition Republican Legislator Rankings

Legislative Actions as of 4/26/2013

Last Updated 4/28/2013

Narrative:

The number of bills being tracked is 254 plus 3 Strike All amended bills.

There were some bills voted on this week that increased economic regulations or expanded the delegation of law making (regulatory) authority from the legislature to the executive branch. There were votes to add regulatory requirements to insurance agents, add state regulation of Music Therapists, and burden private providers of Department of Motor Vehicle Services with regulations that it is likely the actual Department of Motor Vehicles is unable to comply with (the private companies can be shut down, though, while the government agency cannot be). Some Republican legislators voted against these laws, but many voted in favor of them (along with most Democrats).

We have added a new feature to the ratings. There is now a section showing scoring exceptions for a legislator voting NO on a bill in order to make a motion to reconsider it. This is explained in the score section in more detail. The basic idea is that, in this special case, a NO vote is counted as a YES vote in the evaluation because the legislator is actually advancing the bill by using the NO vote as a parliamentary tactic to be permitted to give the bill another chance to be voted on.

As we near the end of the session, we remind legislators as well as the voters to beware of omnibus bills and last minute amendments that can contain legislative language that might be glossed over by overwhelming legislators with too many pages of legislation to read before voting or by making last minute changes that are difficult to properly evaluate before a vote. Legislators should understand that any bill containing legislative language from a bill that we gave a negative weight may get the negative weight of that negatively weighted bill regardless of how many good things are also in the revised bill currently being voted on. Since it will be impossible for the contents of omnibus bills or bills with last minute amendments to be known early enough for an announcement about how the bill weights will be reset for the evaluation, everyone needs to be aware that they will be evaluated on the final version of the bills they vote on after the votes take place. With the Governor digging in to pressure the legislature to expand Medicaid, we will be watching for that in late breaking bills as well as appropriation omnibus bills. We will also be looking for Common Core funding in omnibus bills. We strongly oppose both and will weight bills that include them accordingly.

These are NOT final scores for the session until our final report after the session ends! We encourage conservative activists to use these weekly evaluations as a way to work with legislators to achieve more conservative results in the legislative session.

The legislation causing the most lowering of scores is HB2047 combined with HB2045 which switches Arizona from the AIMS standard to the Common Core standard. Our concern is that Common Core surrenders state autonomy on education to the federal government and promotes nationalization of education well beyond the proper scope of the federal government. In addition, the curriculum associated with Common Core relies on an international perspective instead of traditional study of American and World history. HB2425 was passed by the legislature and signed by the Governor.

Other bills having a significant negative impact on scores remove significant limitations on school district spending, allow executive agencies to set fees in order to bypass limitations on the legislature raising taxes or fees, or increase government regulation of businesses.

Many Republican legislators have argued that good business regulations that “make people do the right thing” are good. This, unfortunately, is almost a perfect definition of fascism which Republicans traditionally oppose. There are always situations where we might wish others would deal with us on terms of our choosing when they are not willing to do so. Using government to force people to deal with us on our terms rather than mutually agreed upon terms is tyranny even if it is dressed up as consumer protection or professional responsibility or trying to improve market efficiency. Of course, in a free economy, people can decide for themselves what is good and make decisions on that basis as both consumers and businesses. Also, government regulations usually have unintended consequences that are usually bad. These consequences are then used to justify still more regulation when less regulation is the best solution.

Updated Ratings!!!

Arizona Conservative Coalition Republican Legislator Rankings

Legislative Actions as of 4/12/2013 Last Updated 4/16/2013

Narrative:

Two bills were added to the evaluation after being brought to our attention by members of the legislature. Although it is late in the session, both bills are well within our policy guidelines indicating the type of weight they would receive.

HB2341 reduces government regulation on remodeling homes when significant structural changes are not being made. We weighted this (+5) because it actually rolls back government regulation. If it had been brought to our attention earlier in the session, it would have gotten a higher weight because the information would have been available before the votes. However, reducing regulations on citizens is a consistent policy objective we espouse.

SB1223 eliminates Fish and Wildlife fees being set by the legislature and assigns that responsibility to an unelected board. This is an obvious attempt to bypass rules that require the legislature to get two thirds majorities to raise taxes and fees. We have consistently told legislators we would weight any bills that delegate the legislature’s taxing authority to the executive branch of government as (-10). That is the weight assigned to SB1223.

The weight on SB1437, a bill for establishing licensing for music therapists, was changed from (-6) to (-5) because an amendment adopted in the House slightly improved the bill by addressing one of our concerns. The weight of (-5) still indicates we oppose the bill as we cannot see that it is an appropriate role for the government to help certain groups of professionals and/or businesses either form cartels, restrict competition, or use the government to provide them with a seal of approval or respectability.

The number of bills being tracked is now 254 plus 3 Strike All amended bills. There were some changes in scores – especially a general move downward in the Senate.

These are NOT final scores for the session until our final report after the session ends!

We encourage conservative activists to use these weekly evaluations as a way to work with legislators to achieve more conservative results in the legislative session.

The legislation causing the most lowering of scores is HB2047 combined with HB2045 which switches Arizona from the AIMS standard to the Common Core standard. Our concern is that Common Core surrenders state autonomy on education to the federal government and promotes nationalization of education well beyond the proper scope of the federal government. In addition, the curriculum associated with Common Core relies on an international perspective instead of traditional study of American and World history. HB2425 was passed by the legislature and signed by the Governor.

Other bills having a significant negative impact on scores remove significant limitations on school district spending or increase government regulation of businesses. Many Republican legislators have argued that good business regulations that “make people do the right thing” are good. This, unfortunately, is almost a perfect definition of fascism which Republicans traditionally oppose. There are always situations where we might wish others would deal with us on terms of our choosing when they are not willing to do so. Using government to force people to deal with us on our terms rather than mutually agreed upon terms is tyranny even if it is dressed up as consumer protection or professional responsibility or trying to improve market efficiency. Of course, in a free economy, people can decide for themselves what is good and make decisions on that basis as both consumers and businesses. Also, government regulations usually have unintended consequences that are usually bad. These consequences are then used to justify still more regulation when less regulation is the best solution.

To look at the AZ Conservative Coalition home page, click on Home Page.

To look at the legislator scores, click on legislative report.

For bills used in evaluation, click on bill weights.

For Frequently Asked Questions, click on FAQs.