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Goldwater Institute's Legislative Report Card (2012)

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The Goldwater Institute, an Arizona conservative-libertarian think tank, released a Legislative Report Card in 2012, evaluating members of the Arizona State Legislature on how well their votes aligned with the institute's priorities. The institute describes its mission as "[to advance] the principles of limited government, economic freedom, and individual liberty, with a focus on education, free speech, healthcare, equal protection, property rights, occupational licensing, and constitutional limits."[1][2]

2012 report

The Goldwater Institute released its 2012 report card on August 15, 2012. The report analyzed 517 votes, 252 for the Senate and 265 for the House, in four categories: education, constitutional government, regulation, and tax and budget. Average scores were 59% in the Arizona State Senate and 56% in the Arizona House of Representatives. Senate Republicans had the highest scores with an average score of 67, followed by House Republicans (65), Senate Democrats (42), and House Democrats (39). The gap between the parties narrowed, as compared to 2011, because the Democrats' scores increased significantly, by an average of 12 in the Senate and nine in the House. The report card found no significant difference between publicly and traditionally funded candidates within parties.[1]

Complete rankings

Click [show] in order to expand the tables below with the full lists of rankings by legislator.

Methodology

Lower Limit Upper Limit Grade
92 100 A+
79 91 A
70 78 A-
67 69 B+
63 66 B
60 62 B-
57 59 C+
53 56 C
50 52 C-
47 49 D+
43 46 D
40 42 D-
37 39 F+
30 36 F
0 29 F
This is the grading rubric used by the Goldwater Institute for its 2012 Legislative Report Card.

The Goldwater Institute's report card tracked how legislators voted on key issues and assigned them a numerical score and letter grade based on how strongly their votes aligned with the institute's values.[1] The institute assessed for each vote included in the report card whether supporting the bill would, in its view, "[advance] liberty through its fundamental components: limited government, the free enterprise system, and the rule of law."[3] Each vote was weighted equally. Legislators were given a raw score from 0 to 100, the percentage of votes in which the legislator agreed with the institute. Letter grades were assigned to legislators based on the curved scale shown to the right. The report card also compared legislators' scores with their scores from the most recent previous report card to identify both individual and partisan trends in voting.

In addition to the percentage and letter scores explained above, the legislative report card also examined legislators' partisan affiliation and campaign funding status, public or traditional, to look for patterns within groups of legislators. It also examined voting behavior on bills based on the institute's perception of a given bill's impact, comparing legislators' scores for bills with low, moderate, and incremental impact.[4]

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Goldwater Institute, "2012 Legislative Report Card for Arizona's 50th Legislature, First Regular Session," August 15, 2012, introduction
  2. ↑ Goldwater Institute, "Our Story," accessed February 24, 2023
  3. ↑ Goldwater Institute, "2012 Legislative Report Card for Arizona’s Fiftieth Legislature, First Regular Session," August 15, 2012, full report, pp. 4-5
  4. ↑ Goldwater Institute, "2012 Legislative Report Card for Arizona’s Fiftieth Legislature, First Regular Session," August 15, 2012, full report, pp. 32-38
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