September 15, 2010

Vote Your District Elected Officials:
Getting in Sync with the Home Folk

Republicans Vote Their Districts More While African-Americans Rate Highest Among Democrats A comparative analysis of legislative voting records and the partisan affiliations of constituents found that the lion's share of Texas House members who voted their districts most last year were African-American Democrats and relatively moderate Republicans. It was the other way around for the GOP majority in the state Senate, however, where conservative Republicans had voting records that were more in sync with their districts from a partisan perspective based on the formula that Capitol Inside developed for the first ever Vote Your District Elected Officials (VYDEO) rankings. But the two Senate Democrats who voted their districts more in 2009 than their 10 Democratic colleagues according to the new VYDEO calculator are African-Americans with relatively liberal voting records in the two most heavily Democratic districts in the state. According to the two-part gauge that measures legislative scorecards compiled by five conservative groups against the partisan ratio of districts, House Republicans as a whole cast votes that more closely resembled their districts than their Democratic colleagues in the Capitol's west wing during the regular session last year. The VYDEO study found that Senate Republicans as a group voted their districts more than Democrats in the Legislature's upper chamber in 2009 as well. While the Republicans on the east side of the rotunda compiled an overall voting record that was slightly more moderate than their districts based on partisan ratios, the votes that Senate Democrats cast last year were significantly more liberal than their districts. But the discrepancies between lawmakers from the two major parties on both sides of the Capitol when it comes to voting their districts can be attributed to a large degree to the fact that Republicans represent a higher percentage of GOP voters than the share of Democratic voters that Democrats in the House and Senate have in their districts. The average GOP member in the House and Senate represent districts where 66 percent and 65 percent of the voters respectively have been Republicans in the last three election cycles. Only 60 percent of the voters in the average House and Senate districts that are represented by Democrats have backed Democratic candidates in statewide races during that time. While Democrats represent more than 20 districts in the House and one in the Senate with GOP voting majorities, none of the Republicans have districts where there are more Democratic voters. The VYDEO calculator - as would be expected - found that Democrats who represent the most heavily Democratic districts in Texas voted their district consistently if they had the most liberal voting records. A lawmaker who represents a swing district could expect to rank high on the VYDEO chart if he or she compiled a relatively moderate voting record while siding with conservatives about half the time. GOP lawmakers in districts where 70 percent of the voters or more are Republicans are ranked high if they had some of the most conservative voting records. But a GOP lawmaker with a highly conservative voting record in a district that's less than 65 percent Republican will have a relatively low ranking. The same goes for GOP legislators with moderate voting records in heavily Republican districts and Democratic lawmakers with relatively conservative scores in districts where 70 percent of the voters or more are Democrats. While the dual formula might appear complicated or even wildly convoluted at first blush, the findings of the VYDEO examination reflect the trends that political followers would generally expect. Here are some of the highlights: * The average conservative score for House Republicans was 66 while Democrats in the lower chamber scored 24 on average. The average Senate Republican conservative score was 61 compared to 25 for the Democrats in the upper chamber. * Sixty-seven House Republicans - or 88 percent of those in the study - compiled voting records that were more conservative in 2009 than than their districts when GOP voters are defined as conservative and Democratic voters are not. But only two of the House's 73 Democrats - or less than three percent - cast votes that were more conservative than their districts based on the same partisan assumptions about voters. * Eleven of the Senate's 19 Republicans had voting records last year that were not as conservative as their districts. But only one Senate Democrat had a voting record score that wasn't as liberal as the district he represents. Senate Democrats had a combined voting record that was 14 points more liberal than the average district that they represent. But Senate Republicans as a group had a voting record in 2009 that was four points less conservative than the average district that the GOP holds in the Capitol's east wing. * The average House Democrat had a voting record last year that was 18 points more or less liberal than his or her district when GOP voters are defined as conservative and Democratic voters are not. The average House Republican cast votes that were 14 points more or less conservative than their districts based on the same partisan measuring criteria. But the House's 73 Republicans - with Speaker Joe Straus not included because he seldom votes as the chamber's top leader - had a combined voting record in 2009 that was 10 points more conservative than the average GOP district. House Democrats as a whole compiled a voting record that was 15 points more liberal than the average district that they represent. * Six Senate Republicans had overall conservative scores below 50 percent on the votes that were examined by five conservative groups that issued the scorecards that were major variables in the VYDEO equation. Only three House Republicans had an average conservative score below 50 percent. But even the most conservative and liberal Senate members on both sides of the aisle had more moderate voting records than the most liberal and conservative state representatives. * The six House Democrats who voted their districts most last year were all African-Americans with liberal voting records in districts where at least 72 percent of the voters have been Democrats. Seven of the 10 House Democrats who ranked highest in on the VYDEO list are African-Americans. Several African-Americans who represent House districts where at least 74 percent of the voters have been Democrats ranked relatively low after compiling conservative voting records by their party's standards. But the only two African-American Senate members are first and second on the list of Democrats in the upper chamber who voted their districts most last year. * The six House Republicans who cast votes most in line with their districts had relatively moderate voting records that matched up with the percentage of GOP voters and Democrats that they represent. * The three House Democrats with the lowest VYDEO score/ratio average were all white lawmakers who've won seats in the last two elections in suburban areas that had been represented by Republicans. One white Democrat ranked in the top 10 for House Democrats who voted their districts the most last year. The seven Democrats with the most conservative voting records are Anglos - and six of those represent districts that are relatively rural. A white lawmaker who's the only Senate Democrat in a Republican district finished at the bottom of the pack in the overall VYDEO rankings with one of the most liberal voting record scores in the upper chamber in 2009.

Texas House

Texas Senate

Texas House II

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Texas lawmakers are caught in a constant tug-of-war between the pressure they feel from party leaders and special interests and the promises they've made to vote the way the people who elected them would want them to on the issues they tackle while they're in session.

In a two-party state where legislative districts are all unique worlds with definitions for conservative and liberal that vary from one to the next, the term "vote your district" is one of the most commonly employed phrases in the Texas Capitol vernacular. But while lawmakers are advised when they arrive in Austin for their first session to vote their conscience first, their district second and their party third, Capitol Inside's new Vote Your District Elected Officials (VYDEO) calculator shows that the prioritization of loyalties tends to be a more delicate balancing act for some legislators than it is for others.

The VYDEO meter is designed to gauge which Texas legislators are voting their districts the most and how often they're doing it. The VYDEO ratings rank Texas House members and state senators based on comparisons between the partisan leanings of the districts they represent and the scores they received from five high-profile conservative organizations for selective votes that they cast during the 2009 regular session. An alternative VYDEO II formula for House members relies on a Rice University study on partisan polarization in place of the conservative scorecards that are used as a basis for the VYDEO I rankings.

As the first measuring stick of its kind at the state level in Texas, the VYDEO I rankings are based on two separate formulas including one known as the VYDEO Ratio that ties the average voting record score directly to the percentage of Republicans and Democrats in a particular district. The second component in assessing how often lawmakers voted their districts is the VYDEO Score, which is computed essentially on how a lawmaker's voting record stacks up against his or her colleagues' and how that compares to the partisan complexion of an individual district when measured against all other districts. The average of the VYDEO Score and the VYDEO Ratio provides the final figure on which the VYDEO I rankings are based.

While none of the methods we've devised are perfect, the VYDEO I and II rankings generally appear to be in sync with practical political logic. A GOP legislator who represents one of the most heavily Republican districts in Texas ranks high on the VYDEO chart if he or she has compiled one of the most conservative voting records. GOP legislators who represent heavily Republican districts rank relatively low if they cast relatively moderate votes at the Capitol in 2009. A Republican lawmaker with a relatively moderate voting record in a district where less than 65 percent of the voters have backed the GOP's statewide slates in the past three election cycles will rank high on the VYDEO meter. But GOP legislators in districts that are less than 65 percent Republican will rank lower if they have highly conservative voting records compared to their colleagues.

The same theories apply to Democrats even though they are gauged from a liberal perspective. Liberal Democrats who represent districts with the highest concentrations of Democratic voters rank high on the charts. By the same token, Democrats with some of the least conservative voting records are going to rank relatively low if they represent districts that lean Republican. A Democrat in a heavily Democratic district with one of the more conservative voting records will have a relatively low ranking as well.

The Democrats who are ranked at the top of the VYDEO I chart on both sides of the rotunda are excellent examples of legislators who voted their district consistently and found it easier to do so than many of their colleagues. The six House Democrats and two Democratic state senators who voted their districts the most in 2009 are all relatively liberal African-American lawmakers in urban inner-city districts where between 75 percent and 82 percent of their constituents are Democratic voters.

The four top-ranked House Democrats on the VYDEO I board - Sate Reps. Garnet Coleman of Houston, Helen Giddings of Dallas, Harold Dutton of Houston and Alma Allen of Houston - all represent districts that had African-American majorities when the current map for the lower chamber was created nine years ago. Allen was the only House Democrat with an ideal VYDEO ratio of L+00 as a lawmaker who sided with conservatives 20 percent of the time on key votes while representing a district that had voted 20 percent Republican in the past three elections. As the Democrat with the third highest percentage of Democratic voters in a House district, Allen would have been the only state representative with a perfect VYDEO average if she'd had the third most liberal voting record last year. But the former State Board of Education member had the 11th most liberal voting record in 2009 based on the conservative scorecards and finished fourth in the VYDEO I rankings behind Coleman and Giddings, who tied for first among House Democrats, and Dutton, who's ranked third.

State Senators Royce West of Dallas and Rodney Ellis of Houston - the Democrats who are ranked first and second respectively on the VYDEO chart for the Capitol's east wing - have won multiple elections in districts where more than 40 percent of the residents are African-Americans. Ellis' voting record as the Senate's most liberal member in 2009 was a near-perfect fit for a district with more Democratic voters than any other Senate district with the exception of the one West represents. But West edged Ellis out for the top spot among Senate Democrats with a slightly more conservative voting record that took into consideration that almost one-fourth of his constituents are Republicans, even though he represents the most heavily Democratic district in the state.

The African-American Democrats with the highest VYDEO scores have at least one thing in common with the House Republican who voted his district more than any other GOP member in the lower chamber in 2009. They all were Democrats in the mid-1990s.

State Rep. Todd Hunter, who ranks higher on the VYDEO I chart than any other GOP House member, returned to the chamber last year as a Republican after a 12-year hiatus that began when he stepped down in 1997 from the seat that he'd held for four terms as a Democrat. The Corpus Christi lawmaker adjusted to the change in partisan affiliation with a voting record that was slightly more conservative than the coastal district he represents where just over 60 percent of the voters in the past three elections have backed Republicans in statewide contests. Hunter had the number one VYDEO I average for a House Republican with a voting record that was the 65th most conservative in a district that had the 64th highest share of Republican voters out of the 76 districts that were included in the study.

While Hunter's voting record wasn't as conservative when he was a Democrat, one of the two House Republicans with the second best VYDEO I average had lower scores on report cards that conservative groups issued in 2009 than he'd received in sessions past. State Rep. Will Hartnett, who represents a 60 percent Republican district in Dallas where Democrats have targeted him this fall, compiled a slightly more conservative voting record in 2009 than the district he represents in a part of the city that's been trending Democrat. With one of the least Republican House districts on the GOP side of the aisle in the House, Hartnett's relatively moderate votes last year were more in line with his district's partisan ratio than the more conservative positions he'd taken in previous sessions.

State Rep. Charlie Geren of Fort Worth was the only House member on either side of the aisle to post a perfect VYDEO score of 00 as a lawmaker with the 57th most conservative voting record in the lower chamber last year while representing the 57th most conservative district. But Geren had a voting record in 2009 that was more conservative than those he'd compiled in previous sessions - and with a VYDEO ratio of C+08 - he tied for second in the key category of VYDEO average. Geren would have had the best possible VYDEO average and ranked first on the list if his voting record score had been eight points less conservative. Geren's VYDEO I average of 4.0 was calculated by splitting the difference between his VYDEO score of 00 and C+08 VYDEO ratio.

While the trends involving lawmakers voting their districts were similar among Democrats on both sides of the Capitol, the Senate Republicans with the highest VYDEO I ratings are more conservative by and large than those on the list below them based on the scores they received from conservative groups for the last legislative session. State Senator Steve Ogden, a Bryan Republican who's generally viewed as the chamber's most powerful member as the Senate Finance Committee chairman, voted his district more than any of the Legislature's other 180 members based on a VYDEO I average that was one point short of perfection. A former state representative, Ogden's voting record in 2009 was slightly less conservative than the Central Texas district he represents where 60 percent of the voters have backed Republicans in statewide races in recent years. But Ogden claimed the VYDEO crown as the Senate Republican with the 12th most conservative record in the district with the 12th highest percentage of GOP voters.

But State Senators Craig Estes of Wichita Falls and Tommy Williams of The Woodlands were close behind in a tie for second in the vote your district rankings. Estes had the fifth most conservative voting record in the chamber while representing a district with the sixth highest percentage of GOP voters. Another former House member who's been regarded as one of the Senate's most conservative members since he entered the upper chamber, Williams was arguably more moderate with the votes that he cast in 2009 than usual based on the fact that seven GOP colleagues had higher average conservative scores. But Williams tied for second in the vote your district competition for Senate Republicans as a lawmaker in a district with the eighth highest concentration of GOP voters and the eighth most conservative voting record in the Capitol's east wing. Williams and Estes could have achieved perfection with their VYDEO averages with a few more moderate votes while Ogden would have posted a perfect average if he'd voted two points more conservative.

A majority of the Democrats who ranked in the bottom 10 on the VYDEO I board are legislators who wrestled several House and one Senate seat from the GOP in 2006 and 2008 in districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin areas. The suburban Democrats in question - most of whom are Anglo - ranked low as lawmakers with districts with GOP voting majorities and voting records that were less conservative than the Democratic average in the lower chamber last year.

A similar trend emerged across the aisle on the Senate side where most of the GOP members who ranked lowest had relatively moderate voting records in districts that are more than 65 percent Republican. The House Republicans with the lowest VYDEO rankings were a mix of conservatives who represent districts that are less than 62 percent Republicans and moderates in districts that are heavily GOP.

While the VYDEO formulas link voting records to ideological and partisan orientations of House and Senate district, there's one much less complicated and time efficient way to determine whether legislators are voting their districts or not. We call this the majority rules method. Based on this approach, Republican legislators with the most conservative voting records in the House or the Senate could argue that they're voting their districts consistently because a majority of their constituents are Republicans without regard for the share of the voters that are Democrats. It's irrelevant at that point whether they're in an 80 percent Republican district or a swing district. Democrats can make the same argument - that they're voting their district no matter how liberal their voting records may be - as long as a majority of the voters who sent them to Austin are Democrats. Even Democrats in GOP-leaning districts with liberal voting records can make the case that they're casting votes on issues the way a majority of their constituents would want them to do as lawmakers who were chosen by voters to represent them at the Capitol the way they promised the would and think they should.

Democrats who disagree with their individual rankings on the vote your district chart might can point out that the VYDEO formula depends on legislative voting record reviews that measure support and opposition on litmus test issues that are higher priorities with Republicans. While that's a valid assertion, the fact remains that the fights on legislation that play out along party and ideological lines tend to be on issues that are GOP priorities in a Legislature where Republicans set the agendas as the majority party on both sides of the Capitol.

Legislators on both sides of the aisle with voting records at one extreme or the other on the ideological scale might argue that they voted their districts by casting votes that a majority of their constituents would support regardless of the percentage of voters they represent from the minority party in the area where they live. Lawmakers who toe the party line on votes are less likely to be targeted from the left or the right in primaries when they're on the ballot for re-election. Lawmakers who side often with big special interests are more likely to have bigger war chests for their campaigns than those who don't. The pressure that legislators feel on key votes from party leaders and major donors who helped them get elected can be intense - especially for lawmakers who are new to the process and those who represent potential swing districts where they can expect to be targeted when they seek new terms.But in the final analysis - regardless of how lawmakers rank on the VYDEO charts - they can honestly say that they're voting records are well suited for their individual districts if the voters they represent agree with them. The people who will either endorse lawmakers' votes on legislation by re-electing them or replace them with somebody else are always the ultimate judges and juries. Once election day rolls around, it doesn't matter as much at that point whether legislators are popular with the party leadership or the lobby.

State Rep. Wayne Christian and State Senator Kel Seliger are good examples of lawmakers who can say they vote their districts even though they rank near the bottom on the VYDEO chart. Christian, a Center Republican who represents five East Texas counties including Nacogdoches and Jasper, had one of the two most conservative voting records in the House in 2009 based on the VYDEO scoring formula. But Christian has a low VYDEO ranking because only 61 percent of his constituents have voted Republican in the last three elections. So the district that Christian represents is the 64th most conservative out of 77 districts that the GOP holds entering the November general election in 2010. Christian would have been ranked number one on the VYDEO I board had he been the state representative in a district in the Panhandle that Republican State Rep. John Smithee of Amarillo represents with the highest percentage of GOP voters in Texas. Smithee - by the same token - would have been ranked first if he'd had the most conservative voting record.

But Christian, who serves as the president of the Texas Conservative Coalition, can argue that he votes his district and point to the election results as the only evidence he needs to support that assertion. After barely winning the House District 9 seat in 1996 when a Democratic incumbent gave it up to run for Senate instead, Christian claimed 55 percent of the vote or more in his first three re-election bids despite being one of the top targets for the Democrats. Christian didn't run again in 2004. But he roared back two years later and beat the Republican who'd replaced him by 12 points in the 2006 primary before claiming 63 percent in a re-election bid against Democrat Kenneth Franks in 2008. Christian is heavily favored in a rematch with Franks this fall. While HD 9 contains more Democrats than the average House district, a solid majority of the voters there have repeatedly endorsed the highly conservative voting records that he's compiled as a legislator.

Seliger, a former Amarillo mayor, represents the most Republican Senate district in Texas by far with more than three Republican voters for every Democrat there. But Seliger, like several GOP colleagues in the upper chamber, received a relatively moderate score for the votes he cast in the 2000 session. In other words, Seliger's voting record and his district's partisan leanings don't add up on paper. But voters in the Texas Panhandle - as Republican as they may appear at the top of the ballot - are more independent than they are partisan. And they seem to love Seliger, who replaced another moderate Republican with a commanding special election victory in 2004 before running for re-election four years later without major party opposition. If Seliger argues that he consistently votes his district despite the last place finish in the VYDEO competition, we would concur with that whole heartedly because the voters there do.

Across the partisan divide, a couple of Democrats who are relatively low on the VYDEO board also could contend that they vote their districts much more than their rankings might suggest. State Rep. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City ranks near the bottom as a lawmaker with one of the 10 most conservative voting record scores in one of the most heavily Democratic House districts in Texas. State Rep. Aaron Peña of Edinburg is in a similar boat with an equally conservative voting record in a House district with one of the higher concentration of Democrats in Texas. But Peña and Guillen represent parts of South Texas where most of the voters are Hispanic and more conservative by and large than people who live in districts where there are not as many Democrats. Guillen and Pena could contend that their relatively conservative voting records for Democrats reflect their districts' wishes more than liberal votes would - and it would be tough to dispute that.

The Austin suburbs are another example of a place where the definitions of liberal and conservative and partisan comparisons aren't quite the same as they are in suburban areas in and around some of the state's other major cities. Austin State Reps. Valinda Bolton and Donna Howard - like most of the House Democrats in districts that had tilted Republican before Barack Obama carried them in 2008 - represent a significant number of suburbanites who vote GOP at the top of the ticket for pocketbook purposes but tend to be more liberal generally than the average Texas Republican. That's one of the reasons that Howard and Bolton were able to wrestle House seats from the GOP in 2006 and successfully defend them at the polls two years ago in re-election bids. In some districts like the one Bolton represents in southwest Travis County, local issues like traffic congestion and safety are higher priorities than many of the topics that the groups that grade legislators focus on for their post-session report cards. Given the unique nature of their districts in the state's most liberal urban center, it's probably fair to say that Bolton and Howard voted their districts more last year than their rankings on the VYDEO chart at first blush would suggest.

After months of research in unplowed territory, the bottom line conclusion is that legislators have been voting their districts until the voters say otherwise. The VYDEO scores, ratios and rankings are not scientific - and they're subject to debate and dispute depending on different definitions, semantics, opinions and measuring criteria. But even though this project has been designed for entertainment and informational value and not political ammunition for candidates, we've come up with a couple of ways that attempt to measure the rate that Texas legislators voted their districts last year as fairly and objectively as possible.

 

Vote Your District Formula Incorporates Voting Record Scores Issued by Prominent Conservative Organizations The inaugural Vote Your District Elected Officials rankings are based on the scores that Texas lawmakers received for selective votes cast during the 2009 regular session from the conservative organizations Empower Texans, Heritage Alliance, Texas Association of Business, Texas Eagle Forum and the Young Conservatives of Texas. While these groups are considered to be Republican and have different priorities than those that back Democrats, the legislative scorecards provide the more comprehensive opportunity for apple-to-apple comparisons for a project like this. The formula on which the VYDEO rankings are based ties the average scores that legislators received from the five groups for the 2009 session to the percentage of Republicans and Democratic voters in each House and Senate district. There are some prominent groups in Texas that are more liberal in nature that compile report cards for legislators as well, including Texas League of Conservation Voters, Environment Texas and NARAL Pro-Choice Texas. But these groups have a more singular focus on specific issues than the conservative organizations that take into account a broader range of topics that reflect the political ideological leanings of lawmakers. The National Federation of Independent Business also rates state lawmakers on the votes they cast on small business issues - and a relatively high grade from the NFIB's Texas chapter can mitigate some of the sting of lower scores from the groups that have more conservative measuring standards. While the groups whose legislative ratings are key ingredients in the VYDEO formula are viewed mostly if not exclusively as conservative and Republican, they are not monolithic by any means in their views on what the most important priorities are when Texas lawmakers are in session. Empower Texans is actually three separate entities that include a political action committee, a non-profit foundation that accepts contributions that are tax deductible and a non-profit corporation called Texans for Fiscal Responsibility that has the ability to make endorsements in political races by relying on donations that are not tax deductible. Empower Texans hasn't been around as long as the other groups whose scorecards were incorporated into the VYDEO formula, but it's evolved into one of the most high-profile political organizations in the state in recent years. The group, which is led by its president Micahel Quinn Sullivan, concentrates on state fiscal and regulatory issues. While Empower Texans has complimented Democrats on fairly rare occasions, it's drawn the wrath more from some Republicans who Sullivan hasn't been shy about criticizing for moderate votes on key legislation. Sullivan was the top official at the Texas Public Policy Foundation before assuming his current role. Heritage Alliance PAC had been known as the Free Enterprise PAC until changing its name in the wake of a furor that it triggered in 2002 when it launched an aggressive offensive aimed at knocking off moderate House and Senate Republicans in the primary election that year. Known until then as Free PAC, the group had been associated with the Free Market Foundation until its leader Richard Ford stepped down from the board and passed the torch to Kelly Shackleford. Ford, a Dallas activist who had led the group since its inception, had been helping corporate interests establish PACs at the national level in Washington before shifting his focus to Texas 25 years ago. He's been a major controversial player in the state political arena since that time as a crusader for free enterprise, limited government, low taxes and traditional religious heritage in government. Heritage Alliance graded legislators last year on votes that they cast on issues such as abortion, funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program and pre-kingergarten and the State Board of Education's authority. Texas Eagle Forum is the state chapter of the national organization that Phyllis Schlafly founded almost 40 years ago to promote family values, individual liberty, private enterprise and conservative positions on government taxes and spending. Conservative superstar activist Cathie Adams led the Texas Eagle Forum for 17 years before stepping down in 2009 after she was elected to the job of Texas GOP chair by the State Republican Executive Committee. Pat Carlson, who served as the Tarrant County Republican chair from 2000 to 2005, took over as the Texas Eagle Forum president after Adams won the state party organization post. Adams also served on the Republican National Committee during her final year as the Eagle Forum leader here. The Eagle Forum made a name for itself with an aggressive grassroots network that can be activated on short notice to turn the pressure up on legislators on issues it views as priorities. The Texas Eagle Forum analyzed votes cast on gun rights, abortion, SBOE powers, transportation taxes and CHIP and pre-K funding. Texas Association of Business is the state's largest organization for corporate employers and one of the most influential forces on the political scene in Texas. TAB - with its associated political action committee known as the Business and Commerce PAC, or simply BACPAC - scored legislators on votes that they cast last year on a myriad of issues including health insurance mandates for employers, unemployment insurance, asbestos lawsuits, an elected insurance commissioner, the 10 percent rule for college admissions and regulatory legislation. The TAB scorecard gave Democrats and moderate Republicans an opportunity to boost their overall legislative scores considerably at a time when many of them fared poorly on the ratings that groups that are more focused on social issues like the Eagle Forum and Heritage Alliance compiled. While 10 Republicans aced the TAB test last year, 10 Democrats scored better than 50 percent on the business group's report card. The second most forgiving group when it came to voting record scores for Democrats was Empower Texans, which gave them an average rating of less than 31 percent. TAB President Bill Hammond has been one of Governor Rick Perry's top allies since they served in the House together in the 1980s. Young Conservatives of Texas has been around for 30 years but may have more clout than ever now with the group's founder, Houston attorney Steve Munisteri, leading the Texas Republican Party as the new chairman. Munisteri won the leadership position in June when he defeated former Texas Eagle Forum chief Cathie Adams in a vote of the delegates at the state GOP Convention in Dallas. YCT doesn't march in lockstep with GOP leaders - and it hasn't been bashful when it comes to criticizing Republicans who it deems too moderate. Some members of the GOP establishment have viewed YCT as a fringe organization, but that's more the result of its relative independence from the party hierarchy and willingness to go against the grain at times. YCT handed out some of the lowest legislative scores that members of both parties received for their votes at the Capitol in 2009.