( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

UPDATE: AFL-CIO Lifetime Scores now included

This is another installment from my project that has been in the works now for nearly two years, but might finally be coming around the corner to some sort of real conclusion.   So, as I wait to find out if I’m going to ever land the funding to expand the project nationally, I wanted to share some of the information I all ready have on hand.  My hope is that, once I’m able to work all this out and make the numbers all available, there will be more of this kind of analysis online.

To provide a little back history, in the fall of 2009 I set out to develop some sort of rudimentary legislative district index for Vermont (If you’re interested, click on my profile and check my past diaries for a little more background).  My basic formula was to include Presidential, Gubernatorial, and State Legislative results in order to accurate rank the partisan preference of all 108 of the state’s legislative districts compared to the state on average.  You can expect a longer post about my methodology once I have a clearer picture of what the timeline is for this entire project, but I’m basically using the results of six recent elections, weighted for how strongly I’ve valued them as an indicator and for how long ago the election occurred.

One of the principle reasons for this project was that in the time I’ve been following politics online, I have been intrigued by how data plays an increasingly large role in casual political observation, and the popularity of analysis in the style of FiveThirtyEight.  However, for people to be able to replicate that kind of stuff on a local level, they need metrics to use, and those are often lacking.  

As an example of the function of this legislative district index, I’ve taken the 2008 Vermont District Index and paired it with the legislative scorecards issued by VPIRG, Vermont League of Conservation Voters, and the Vermont Chamber of Commerce for 2009-2010 to try and paint a fuller ideological picture of the last session of the Vermont House.  For the purposes of these charts, I only included legislators who were serving at the end of the 2010 session.  

Before I blabber on too much, here are the charts:

The first one uses the lifetime scores given out by the Vermont League of Conservation Voters (who deserve recognition for making lifetime numbers easily available).  There are a couple of points that really stand out on the map.  For Democrats, there are a fair number of representatives who underperform the trend line, ranging from Rep. Warren Kitzmiller in Washington-5 (D+35, 82% lifetime LCV score) to the worst offender, Rep. Richard Howrigan in Franklin-2 (R+16, 34%).  For the representatives in more liberal seats like Rep. Kitzmiller, his score is still on the lower end for the Democratic caucus, but by no means out of line.  Rep. Howrigan, on the other hand, has voted more conservatively on environmental issues that a number of Republicans in more conservative seats than he is in.  Effectively, when it comes to the environment, he votes much more like a Republican.

On the other hand, the Republican side of the equation isn’t all that interesting.  Aside from the hardliners who sit around 20%, there is a fair degree of leeway amongst the Republican caucus on the environment, with scores bouncing between 20 and 60 percent.  Worth nothing that there’s no real correlation when you look at the Republican caucus by itself – Republicans seem to be voting exactly how they feel on the environment  

The scores from VPIRG are the least helpful of the group, as so many Dems have 100% scores – the overlapping along the 100% line is what makes this graph appear so sparse.  There are only seven Democrats with imperfect scores: Reps. Browning, Gilbert, Howrigan, Keenan, Potter, Rodgers, and South, all on the conservative end.  That being said, Rep. Chip Conquest stands out as a shining example of the kind of Democrat you want to elect: not only is the seat he won in 2008 the most conservative seat held by a Democrat, but he managed to win re-election in 2010 while still receiving a 100% score from VPIRG.  Once again, the Republican caucus is all over the place.  Perhaps the most interesting point here is Rep. Topper McFaun in Washington-4, who represents one of the most conservative seats in the House, yet posted the highest VPIRG score among Republican legislators at 71%.

The Chamber of Commerce scores flip the trend line in the other direction and offer a few interesting points to keep in mind.  For the Republicans, Rep. McFaun’s score again deserves attention, as he was scored significantly lower than his colleagues who represent equally conservative districts.  If there was any sort of legitimate tea party presence in Vermont, you would have to imagine that between his votes on these issues and his previous rhetoric on health care, he would be a prime target.  The other low number on the list comes from Rep. Joseph Krawczyk, who was identified by the index as possessing the most Democratic seat held by a Republican – though after his defeat last fall, that title is back with Rep. Kurt Wright.

For Democrats, only three break the 60% barrier, but all three fall on the more conservative end of the scale.  Once again, Rep. Howrigan is on the list, as is Rep. Keenan and Rep. Robert Krebs, who was appointed to finish the term of the late Rep. Ira Trombley after his passing, before winning the office in his own right last fall.  It is worth noting that Rep. Krebs high score, while by no means out of line given the lean of his district, is inflated as a result of the limited number of votes that could be tabulated for him – his voting record in the House was identical to Rep. Mitzi Johnson (40%), who also represents the Grand Isle-Chittenden District.

Lastly, just to clarify, by analyzing these charts I by no means claim that their scores are accurate measures when viewed alone – there are well documented issues with interest group scorecards, and it appears that the rules for how legislators are scored are not always applied equally by all groups.  That being said, viewing these numbers in the context of the partisan lean of the district does give us a chance to peak at the members who have been more willing to stray from their caucus – whether that is for better or worse depends on the individual situation.  As always, if you’re interested in seeing more specific graphics, feel free to ask in the comments or contact me directly.

UPDATE:

Thanks to Dennis LaBounty, political director at the Vermont AFL-CIO, I can now show you their scorecard as well

A few quick notes: last session, there was only one House roll call vote that the AFL-CIO counted for their scorecard: S.290 AN ACT RELATING TO RESTORING SOLVENCY TO THE UNEMPLOYMENT TRUST FUND, which was overwhelmingly passed with the support of leadership, and resulted in the first “WRONG” vote for most Democratic lawmakers.  In this kind of graphic, that becomes even more pronounced, as there are a lot of fairly liberal, freshman Democrats who have scores of 0%.  I debated whether to counterbalance this by counting H. 647, a bill they highlighted as being a victory for labor, but since it wasn’t a roll call vote there really wasn’t any appropriate way for me to tabulate the votes.

In terms of looking at some of the lawmakers in this graph, surprise, surprise, once again Rep. McFaun has been voting pro-labor at a much greater rate than his colleagues. On the Democratic side, there isn’t much to bring up: the underperforming Reps on the liberal end of the spectrum all have 4 or less votes, one of which was a “WRONG” vote this year, and if you head down to the more conservative districts, the last Democrat sitting at 100% is Rep. Bob South, who broke ranks on the bill last session, but just as is the case with his other freshman, only has one data point to rely on.

For the lifetime numbers, AFL-CIO’s approach of being very strict about what votes count and what votes don’t works very well, but in the short term, it can really skew the picture.

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