2017 Senate Conservative Index

The 2017 Oklahoma Conservative Index

Constitution Staff

This issue of the Oklahoma Constitution presents the 39th annual Oklahoma Conservative Index, rating our state legislators. Members of each house of the Oklahoma Legislature were rated on ten key votes. A favorable vote on these issues represents a belief in fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, free enterprise, and constitutional government.

After taking suggestions from conservative leaders, the staff of the Oklahoma Constitution submitted bills to a vote of the membership of the Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee (OCPAC) to determine the ten key votes. The legislators were rated based on their votes on bills involving taxes and fees, tax credits, interference in free markets, protecting liberty, and the right to keep and bear arms.

Conservative Index of 2017 Oklahoma House

   The 2017 regular session of the Oklahoma legislature is done. Oklahoma Constitution Newspaper has again published a scorecard for each of the nearly 150 members.

See the spreadsheets

  This may be the worst performance by any Republican-led legislature. Especially poor is the aggregate score of the 3rd term members of the house. These 8 members are also the most influential.

1. Healthy Food Financing
2. Smoking Cessation Fee
3. Tourism Tax Credits
4. REAL ID Compliance
5. Pointing of Firearms
6. Sheriff Qualifications
7. Vehicle Tax Increase
8. Income TaxCut Trigger
9. Mining Fee Increase
10. Tanning for Minors

2017 RINO Index: OK Senate

The 2017 RINO INDEX
of Oklahoma Legislators

2017 Oklahoma RINO Index The 2017 RINO Index is really simple this year, a No vote is good, a yes vote is bad. That is because we focus on what legislators do wrong, not what they should be doing which is representing their constituents and voting on the good legislation. The major impetus this year was raising taxes, raising fees, and preserving special interest tax credits so that all of the legislation that was bad needed a No vote.  Each vote is worth five points, an E or Excused is a negative 2.5 points for missing the vote. Of the 28 bills that made our decision list we had one senator that voted right every time, Senator Breechen. We threw out six bills to weed the list down to an even twenty bills, choosing bills that some of the good guys had other opinions on. That is a challenge because some of them were bad bills but the larger the list the more a bad vote is diluted. Originally we used ten bills but that leaves a lot of bad bills behind. Then there were two bills out of the batch that the Senate didn't vote on. The higher the index number the more conservative the legislator. Anything below 70% is considered a RINO, Republican In Name Only. This year's House version of the 2017 Oklahoma RINO Index was drawn from the same list of 28 bills that the Senate Index was drawn from, with one exception, one of the log rolled tax increases was added before the list was boiled down to twenty bills. One legislator got all 29 votes right, Rep. Jason Murphey, next was Rep Tommy Hardin at three bad votes and two missed votes (half point each) and Rep. Mike Ritze at two bad votes and four missed votes, then Rep. Tom Gann at five bad votes and Rep Chuck Strohm with five bad votes and two missed votes.

Key to scoring and details: Legislator District Party HB 1427 Out of State Tax Collection HB 1449 Electric Vehicle Tax HB 1837 Lottery % Raid HB 1845 REAL ID HB 2131 10% sales tax rebate scheme HB 2348 Deduction Freeze HB 2351 Tax Incentive Credit HB 2356 Franchise tax date move HB 2367 Sales tax collector clawback HB 2372 $1.50 cigarette tax increase HB 2387 OJA bonds HB 2389 Health Dept Bonds HB 2403 Tax Deduction Limit HB 2414 Log rolling 3 tax bill HB 2433 Car Sales Tax SB 38 Fee increase SB 120 Aerospace Tax Credit Extension SB 170 Income Tax Rate Cut Reversal SB 786 Soft on Crime bill SB 845 Smoking “fee” Bad votes Score Why so many Democrats in the middle? Because they are so few and so out of power their strategy is to vote against tax increases and fee increases, something they normally would support. However, they didn't vote for these tax and fee increases so regardless of the motivation they were scored accurately. The flip side is that the Republicans were hell bent on raising taxes and fees while continuing as many of the tax credits and even making new tax credits. So they rightfully earned their spot at the bottom of the Index. There should be two files linked, the House Index in PDF format and the Senate Index in PDF format.  Please share these far and wide, all we ask is that you attribute them to the Sooner Tea Party.

The 2017 RINO Index: OK House

The 2017 RINO INDEX
of Oklahoma Legislators

2017 Oklahoma RINO Index The 2017 RINO Index is really simple this year, a No vote is good, a yes vote is bad. That is because we focus on what legislators do wrong, not what they should be doing which is representing their constituents and voting on the good legislation. The major impetus this year was raising taxes, raising fees, and preserving special interest tax credits so that all of the legislation that was bad needed a No vote.  Each vote is worth five points, an E or Excused is a negative 2.5 points for missing the vote. Of the 28 bills that made our decision list we had one senator that voted right every time, Senator Breechen. We threw out six bills to weed the list down to an even twenty bills, choosing bills that some of the good guys had other opinions on. That is a challenge because some of them were bad bills but the larger the list the more a bad vote is diluted. Originally we used ten bills but that leaves a lot of bad bills behind. Then there were two bills out of the batch that the Senate didn't vote on. The higher the index number the more conservative the legislator. Anything below 70% is considered a RINO, Republican In Name Only. This year's House version of the 2017 Oklahoma RINO Index was drawn from the same list of 28 bills that the Senate Index was drawn from, with one exception, one of the log rolled tax increases was added before the list was boiled down to twenty bills. One legislator got all 29 votes right, Rep. Jason Murphey, next was Rep Tommy Hardin at three bad votes and two missed votes (half point each) and Rep. Mike Ritze at two bad votes and four missed votes, then Rep. Tom Gann at five bad votes and Rep Chuck Strohm with five bad votes and two missed votes.

Key to scoring and details: Legislator District Party HB 1427 Out of State Tax Collection HB 1449 Electric Vehicle Tax HB 1837 Lottery % Raid HB 1845 REAL ID HB 2131 10% sales tax rebate scheme HB 2348 Deduction Freeze HB 2351 Tax Incentive Credit HB 2356 Franchise tax date move HB 2367 Sales tax collector clawback HB 2372 $1.50 cigarette tax increase HB 2387 OJA bonds HB 2389 Health Dept Bonds HB 2403 Tax Deduction Limit HB 2414 Log rolling 3 tax bill HB 2433 Car Sales Tax SB 38 Fee increase SB 120 Aerospace Tax Credit Extension SB 170 Income Tax Rate Cut Reversal SB 786 Soft on Crime bill SB 845 Smoking “fee” Bad votes Score Why so many Democrats in the middle? Because they are so few and so out of power their strategy is to vote against tax increases and fee increases, something they normally would support. However, they didn't vote for these tax and fee increases so regardless of the motivation they were scored accurately. The flip side is that the Republicans were hell bent on raising taxes and fees while continuing as many of the tax credits and even making new tax credits. So they rightfully earned their spot at the bottom of the Index. There should be two files linked, the House Index in PDF format and the Senate Index in PDF format.  Please share these far and wide, all we ask is that you attribute them to the Sooner Tea Party.

2017 RIED Report

  Oklahoma's Business & Corporate Interests, and the legislators who voted on matters important to the Business & economic concerns of RIED.

  THE RIED REPORT Institute research creates a profile of each legislator’s individual voting record for bills dealing with business, industry, job creation and economic growth issues deemed important by the private sector. Each legislator is graded with respect to his or her position on each bill. The RIED Report is available at riedreport.com. RIED is a 501 (c) 6 organization and is non-partisan. We do not lobby issues, endorse candidates or campaigns.

BILLS UTILIZED FOR FINAL 2017 RIED EVALUATIONS:

 HB 1123, HB 1429, HB 1534, HB 1570, HB 1845, HB 2128, HB 2131, HB 2311, SB 120, SB 154, SB 430, SB 531, SB 769, SB 867

Disclaimer: All data in this document is obtained from legislative, government and private sector sources. The data, information and estimations herein are not warranted as to accuracy and are presented as is and without warranty either expressed or implied. The purpose of this material is to inform. Further, the material is not intended to be and does not constitute an endorsement of any kind or to be or to represent an official source. Interested persons should formulate their own opinions relative to the data, information and estimations herein or to any information related thereto.

The 2017 RIED Report

of Oklahoma Legislators

2017 GovTrack Ideology US House Index

Ideology Analysis of Members of Congress

  The Govtrack ideology analysis assigns a liberal–conservative score to each Member of Congress based on his or her pattern of cosponsorship.

  In a nutshell, Members of Congress who cosponsor similar sets of bills will get scores close together, while Members of Congress who sponsor different sets of bills will have scores far apart. Members of Congress with similar political views will tend to cosponsor the same set of bills, or bills by the same set of authors, and inversely Members of Congress with different political views will tend to cosponsor different bills.

  You can find this analysis on the pages for current Members of Congress.  The charts to the right plot the ideology score on the horizontal axis and the leadership score on the vertical axis. Look at the extremes. For instance, Sen. Jim Inhofe appears as the most extreme Republican in the Senate chart and he is widely regarded as one of the most conservative senators.

2017 GovTrack Ideology US Senate Index

Ideology Analysis of Members of Congress

  The Govtrack ideology analysis assigns a liberal–conservative score to each Member of Congress based on his or her pattern of cosponsorship.  In a nutshell, Members of Congress who cosponsor similar sets of bills will get scores close together, while Members of Congress who sponsor different sets of bills will have scores far apart. Members of Congress with similar political views will tend to cosponsor the same set of bills, or bills by the same set of authors, and inversely Members of Congress with different political views will tend to cosponsor different bills.  You can find this analysis on the pages for current Members of Congress.

  The charts to the right plot the ideology score on the horizontal axis and the leadership score on the vertical axis. Look at the extremes. For instance, Sen. Jim Inhofe appears as the most extreme Republican in the Senate chart and he is widely regarded as one of the most conservative senators.