Just Released National Study: Democrats Control Idaho Senate – Republicans Narrowly Hold House
Former ACU/CPAC Scorecard Team Expands Operations Through Launch of New State Policy and Data Organization
WASHINGTON, DC – A just released study on the Idaho Legislature has found a number of Idaho lawmakers are incorrectly aligning themselves with political parties that do not match their values based on their voting records. The findings are part of an analysis of 5,670 lawmaker votes conducted by the Institute for Legislative Analysis (ILA) a national policy and data hub recently established by the former scorecard team of the American Conservative Union (CPAC).
The study reassigned each lawmaker to the correct political party that matches their philosophical values based upon their votes. The data reveals that philosophically Democratic lawmakers are actually in control of the State Senate (21 Democrats to 14 Republicans) while philosophically Republican lawmakers are holding onto a narrow majority in the State House of Representatives (38 Republicans to 32 Democrats). All lawmakers are placed on a 0 to 100 political ideology scale based on their adherence to the limited government principles of the U.S. Constitution. Scores of “0% – 50%” equate a Democrat philosophy while scores of “51% – 100%” mark a Republican philosophy.
The ILA applies the same methodology to every state it researches. In most states including California, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania not a single self-defined Republican scored below a 60%. Idaho represents one of the very worst cases of fraudulent party identification, perhaps even worse than what ILA recently exposed in Wyoming.
The ILA also evaluated the bill signage and veto history of Idaho’s Governor through the nation’s first legislative Governor rating system. The analysis found that Governor Brad Little sided with the Limited Government position 42.53% of the time which corresponds to a Democratic political philosophy. The data revealed that Governor Little strongly aligned with limited government on policies relating to election integrity and individual liberties but aligns with the progressive wing of the Democratic party on fiscal, spending and regulatory-related issues. The Governor and every lawmaker is provided separate ratings across 10 key policy categories to help better pinpoint political party alignment.
“Unfortunately, it appears a significant number of philosophically Democratic lawmakers have decided to mislabel their party affiliation as ‘Republican.’ said Ryan McGowan, CEO of the Institute for Legislative Analysis. “This deceptive practice by ‘Republican’ lawmakers should greatly concern the citizens of Idaho as it is resulting in the implementation of Big Government policies. Such policies are familiar to progressive states like California or New York, places with values I don’t think are shared by many in the Gem State”.
Earlier this year, the ILA produced the most comprehensive and in-depth vote record analysis ever conducted on Congress made up of nearly 40,000 votes. In September, the ILA released a policy record analysis spanning 10,000 actions taken by Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, Tim Scott and Mike Pence.
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Institute for Legislative Analysis
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