May 18, 2007

Texas Legislators Still Veer Right of Center
Despite Gains by Democrats at Statehouse

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

It wasn't a typo, a communications glitch or a bad April Fool's joke - and neither one of the two Republicans on the losing side of the tally complained about malfunctioning voting machines or devious ghost votes.

The veteran Republican pair joined 31 mostly liberal Democrats who voted on second reading against the Religious Viewpoint Anti-Discrimination Act - a bill designed to protect the right of students to express the beliefs they hold sacred at prayer groups, club meetings and other forums that are organized on campus and at school-sponsored events. But when the Republican majority failed to table an amendment by State Rep. Yvonne Davis to prohibit speech that promoted discrimination on the basis of sex, race, age and sexual preference, the incorporation of political correctness into the measure caused its supporters to lose two votes they probably thought they'd had locked up from the start. Talton was even a co-sponsor of House Bill 3678.

Ryan Guillen: Speaker's Democratic Ally

As a result, the web site's examination of House and Senate voting records compiled during the past two years takes into account the individual motivations of members when they're apparent when calculating scores for the 2007 conservative rankings. The House votes on religious expression this year and the business tax in 2006 are among 10 votes that have been dissected in the quest to separate the true conservatives from the rest of the pack in a Legislature controlled by Republicans for more than four years. Ten state Senate votes including one cast on school finance bill in a special session in 2005 have also been analyzed to help determine who the most conservative senators have been during the past two years.

Troy Fraser: Senate's Most Conservative

First-term legislators were graded separately based on votes they've cast this year.

State Rep. Ken Paxton of McKinney leads the pack in the Capitol's west wing, having voted with fellow conservatives 97 percent of the time on selective key votes cast during the past two years. Paxton was one of the Republicans who defied House leaders in last year's special session by voting on the same side as Democrats in protest of the business tax plan that some of the GOP's most conservative activists opposed as well. He's taken the lead this year on a $2.5 billion property tax cut that Governor Rick Perry wants legislators to approve on top of local tax reductions that they endorsed in special session last year.

But in a move that made the House's conservative foundation appear shakier, Paxton failed to stave off an amendment last week during the floor debate that makes the tax cut contingent on a $6,000 annual pay raise for public school teachers, librarians, counselors and nurses. The poison poll amendment, which was supported by Democrats and more than a dozen House Republicans, appears to guarantee the Paxton bill's demise if it stays on the measure. While the amendment was another sign that the House as a whole is not as conservative as it has been in recent years, Paxton's own conservative credentials have been impeccable as one of only three House members who scored in the 90s on report cards handed out after the regular session two years ago by all three groups whose ratings are factored into the CVI.

Delwin Jones: Most Moderate House Republican

Across the rotunda, State Senators Troy Fraser of Horseshoe Bay and Mike Jackson of La Porte bypassed three colleagues to claim the first two places on the Senate scoring index for Republicans as members of a chamber that's more moderate on average than House. State Senator Eddie Lucio Jr. of Brownsville moved into the number one spot on the scoring index for Senate Democrats as part of a process of electoral elimination that left the upper chamber without the two members most likely to vote with Republicans on any given day. State Senator Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio has the distinction of being the Senate's least conservative Republican based on the votes he cast during the current regular session and the one two years back. Wentworth, a 14-year Senate veteran who served five years in the House, hasn't let past attempts to defeat him by GOP put a dent in the independent streak he's demonstrated during a long career at the Capitol.

State Rep. Chuck Hopson of Jacksonville ranks as the most conservative (or most moderate or least liberal) Democratic House member. But Hopson is still more than four points behind the House Republican who cast the fewest conservative votes of those analyzed in 2005 and 2007 - State Rep. Delwin Jones of Lubbock. Jones, who's been a member of the House for 27 out of the past 43 years, represents one of the state's most Republican districts. But when San Antonio investor James Leininger led a move by conservatives to run Jones out of the House last year, the former Democrat captured 60 percent of the GOP primary vote en route to another re-election victory.

State Rep. Paul Moreno of El Paso has been on the injured reserve list off and on during this year's session, but the votes that he has cast since 2005 are as predictably and fiercely as liberal as the voters who know him and love him have have come to expect during 38 years in the lower chamber.

The scoring index for House members in the current session is tied to votes on a variety of issues including children's health insurance, school vouchers, teacher pay, state spending, gambling, religious expression and several less conventional issues such as premarital education training and new voter registration requirements that are related to the debate on illegal immigration as well as the religious expression and business tax bills. .

The line between conservative and liberal is more difficult to delineate in a state Senate where disagreements are worked out behind the scenes and votes are often lopsided if not unanimous as a result. This year's scoring index for state senators takes into account votes on abortion issues, protective services for children, redistricting, clean air, homeland security, mandatory HPV vaccines, criminal defendant rights and alternatives to prison for drug offenders. The tenth vote that's used to gauge scores for the second half of the equation was actually cast on a school finance plan in the second summer special session of 2005. That particular vote effectively separate the Senate's true liberals from moderate Democrats and Republicans who tend to be more moderate than conservative once they become senators.

On the House side, 10 of the 20 most conservative state representatives were members of the freshmen class that entered the lower chamber in 2003 with an eye on moving it more to the right at a time when the GOP had claimed control in the west wing of the Capitol for the first time in more than a century. In addition to Paxton, the third-term members who rank among the 10 most conservative House members on the votes examined during the past two years are State Reps. Bill Zedler of Arlington, Debbie Riddle of Tomball, Larry Taylor of Friendswood and Dan Flynn of Van.

The average Republican state representative who's been around for more than one session cast conservative votes 81 percent of the time during the past two years while Senate members who represent the GOP took the conservative path on 72 percent of the votes they cast. House Democrats who've been in the Legislature for two terms at least voted with conservatives 23 percent of the time during the two regular sessions in question while their Democratic counterparts in the Senate only veered to the right on 18 percent of the votes they cast. That number was sizably higher when Ken Armbrister and Frank Madla were the Senate's most conservative Democratic members during the 2005 regular session. But Armbrister stepped down from the upper chamber at the start of the year and joined Perry's staff while Madla resigned last year after failing to win re-election in last year's primary election. Madla died in a fire at his home on Thanksgiving weekend later that year.

The House's freshmen Republican members had a cumulative conservative average of 88 percent on the 10 votes analyzed this year while first-term House Democrats only voted with conservatives 15 percent of the time on those. When factored together, the House's 28 freshmen (counting State Rep. Wayne Christian, who returned to the House after a two-year hiatus) sided with conservatives 54 percent of the time on the selective votes that were examined.

The 121 lawmakers who've been members of the House for two terms or more were on the conservative side 54 percent of the time on selective votes cast in the regular sessions in 2005 and 2007. Speaker Tom Craddick, who rarely votes on bills and resolutions, isn't included in that number. Twenty-six state senators who've been in the upper chamber for more than one term voted with conservatives 55 percent of the time on votes that were analyzed for the current session and the regular session two years ago. That's not a typo. The percentage of conservative votes cast in the House reflects the partisan complexion in a chamber where 54 percent of the members are Republicans. But while the Senate's conservative voting percentage is slightly higher than the House share, it's significantly lower than the GOP's share of Senate seats. As a result, the Senate average is more evidence that senators tend to gravitate toward the center of the lane in an upper chamber where almost 65 percent of the seats are held by the GOP.

The most conservative Democrats in the House and the Senate do not rate as high as the least conservative Republicans in their respective chambers. But the difference is more glaring in the upper chamber where the percentage of conservative votes cast by Wentworth during the past two years is almost 20 points higher than Lucio's share of conservative votes. In the House, however, Hopson the Democrat trails Jones the Republican by less than four percentage points on the conservative voting scale this year.

Ken Paxton: Most Conservative House Member

	Most Conservative Republicans	CVI Score in 2007	District GOP Vote in 2006
1	Ken Paxton	97.0	71.5%
2	Robert Talton	96.5	60.2%
3	Bill Zedler	95.7	57.2%
4	Debbie Riddle	93.3	70.8%
4	Larry Taylor	93.3	63.2%
6	Joe Crabb	92.9	70.5%
7	Dan Flynn	92.7	66.9%
8	Leo Berman	92.4	73.0%
9	Carl Isett	91.7	65.1%
10	Will Hartnett	91.5	62.6%

	Most Moderate Republicans	CVI Score in 2007	District GOP Vote in 2006
1	Jeff Wentworth	43.7	62.5%
2	Kel Seliger	51.7	76.2%
3	Kip Averitt	52.7	65.3%
4	Delwin Jones	53.0	75.9%
5	John Carona	55.2	58.5%
5	Pat Haggerty	55.2	55.5%
7	Mike Hamilton	56.7	60.3%
8	Charlie Geren	58.2	64.6%
9	Tommy Merritt	58.5	71.3%
10	Robert Duncan	64.9	69.5%

	Most Conservative Democrats	CVI Score in 2007	District GOP Vote in 2006
1	Chuck Hopson	49.3	66.5%
2	Jim McReynolds	46.5	59.7%
3	Robby Cook	45.7	58.2%
4	Patrick Rose	41.2	55.8%
5	David Farabee	41.0	66.3%
6	Allan Ritter	39.2	59.9%
7	Joe Pickett	34.7	43.3%
7	Chente Quintanilla	34.7	40.2%
9	Hubert Vo	32.7	55.0%
10	Ryan Guillen	32.2	18.0%
10	Mark Homer	32.2	58.7%

	Least Conservative Democrats	CVI Score in 2007	District GOP Vote in 2006
1	Paul Moreno	5.3	31.4%
2	Roberto Alonzo	5.7	28.3%
3	Jessica Farrar	5.8	37.4%
4	Yvonne Davis	7.7	30.7%
5	Garnet Coleman	8.0	21.3%
6	Mario Gallegos	9.3	34.2%
7	Rodney Ellis	9.5	34.2%
8	Lon Burnam	9.7	32.4%
9	Senfronia Thompson	10.5	26.2%
10	Eliot Shapleigh	11.5	41.9%