The Source of Idaho’s Legislative Drama

I’ve finished calculating the Idaho Conservative Scorecard for the 2009 session. It’ll be available shortly. I’ll have to call my host and figure out what’s the problem with the Idaho Conservative directory. Once that’s done, I can get these officially posted. For today, I’m doing a little bit of a sneak peak.

One thing I’m adding, now that we’ve got 3 years of legislative history is a pie chart of what type of voting records legislators have. A score of 1-10% would be Most Liberal, 11-25%-Liberal, 26-40%-Center-Left, 41-60%-Center, 61-75%-Center Right, 76-90%-Conservative, 91-100%-Most Conservative.

Here’s how the State Senate looks:

The left is represented by blue, center-left by sky blue, the center by gray, center-right is rose colored, and the conservative part of the Senate is a fuschia, and the most conservative part of the Senate is. The Center-left portion of the Senate is actually made of 3 Republicans (Joe Stegner, Gary Schroeder, and Chuck Coiner) and 2 Democrats (Les Bock and Clint Stennett.)  This gives the Senate a dynamic where conservatives don’t have enough reliable members. 76% is a low threshhold for conservatives and only 13 Senators (0r 37% of Senators) can be counted on to vote with that level of consistency, which means legislation must be watered down enough to gain the support of enough of the rest of the Senate’s less conservative members.

Now, let’s take a look at the State House and the difference is pretty dramatic:

30% of the House fits into the “Very Conservative” category and another 31% fit into the Conservative Category with reliability above 76%. Thus, with voting records like these, it’s much easier for the House conservatives to move legislation. The House Democrats are slightly to the left of their counterparts and thus the addition of the Most Liberal Category to the charge with six members who had voting records of 0-10%. There’s also no center on this chart because no one in the House falls into the 40-60% no man’s land. Rep. Tom Trail (R-6) is actually part of the Center-left and Rep. Mary Lou Shepherd (D-2) is actually part of the Center-right.

Thus, we’ve got two very different bodies and the key to conservative success is moving the Senate to the right, while holding on to the House Seats that give Conservatives such an advantage in the State House.