BETA
Our intention is to provide a clear, simplified metric that you can use to measure the alignment of your state legislator’s voting record in comparison to your personal beliefs. These metrics are intended to contrast key votes as prioritized by both liberal and conservative political institutions in Utah. Through this contrast you will begin to see the ideological leanings of legislators and how they differ among each other.
Our team has spent considerable time searching to find as many institutions as possible that had created legislative scorecards since 2010. We hope this tool will lead to more groups creating yearly legislative scorecards in the future that can be added to give more perspective and opinion.
As you go through the individual scorecards you will find a wide range of scores and issues. On some scorecards no legislator will receive 100%, such as with many years of Utah Grassroots. In contrast, some scorecards have a much higher bottom line than others, meaning the lowest score received will hover around 50 percent, such as with Americans for Prosperity or the Utah Taxpayers Association. Others allow a legislator to actually go into the negative, such as with Alliance for a Better Utah.
The scorecards used in our analysis focus on a diverse set of issues. Some are 100% focused on education or the environment, such as with Utah Education Association or Sierra Club, respectively. Others take a broad approach to conservative or liberal issues, such as The American Conservative Union or Alliance for a Better Utah, respectively. No single scorecard can tell you everything you need to know about an elected official but should be viewed as a piece of a larger puzzle in providing a clearer picture.
Our ratings were created in a multi-step process. First, each institution’s yearly scorecard was graded on a curve. This means for each scorecard the top score was given 100 and the bottom score was given 0. This was done to provide clear, measurable contrast between legislators. Second, each institution was weighted from 10 to the left to 10 to the right, 0 being ideologically neutral. A 0 score for a candidate means the candidate falls in the middle of both ideologies, commonly referred to as a centrist. That rating was applied as a weight to come up with the representative’s calculated ideology score. Those respective scores from each institution for a given year were combined to provide a yearly “Composite Score”. The “Lifetime Composite Score” score is the mean of all possible yearly Composite Scores.
We started with a basic assumption of whether each institution was Conservative or Liberal leaning. Our assumption is as follows: (listed alphabetically)
| CONSERVATIVE-LEANING | LIBERAL-LEANING |
|---|---|
| Americans for Prosperity | Alliance for a Better Utah |
| Libertas Institute | Planned Parenthood Action Council of Utah |
| National Federation of Independent Business | Sierra Club |
| Parents for Choice in Education | Utah Education Association |
| Pro-Life Utah | |
| Sutherland Institute | |
| The American Conservative Union | |
| Utahns Against Common Core | |
| Utah Charter Network | |
| Utah Grassroots | |
| Utah Taxpayers Association |
To come to each institution’s score we made a comparison of all of the bills that had been scored by more than one organization. Each time a conservative and liberal organization(s) had ranked the same bill equally either in support or opposition we moved them toward 0; the more often that a conservative and liberal organization ranked the same bill differently we moved them toward 10 in either direction. Additionally, any time that two or more organizations of the same political ideology ranked the same bill equally we left their score the same, but any time that two or more organizations of the same political ideology ranked the same bill differently we reviewed the bill itself. On those case-by-case bills a determination was made about which of the two organizations had taken the stronger conservative or liberal position and moved that organization farther toward 10 in their respective ideological direction.
Rank My Rep is a metadata tool that relies on data aggregation to produce an ideological score. Due to our data aggregation some users may disagree with our result and assessment. To provide an unfiltered assessment, we have included a “Ranking” score of where each legislator fell in numerical order according to each institution’s scorecard. These Rankings will be shown in three areas: yearly Institutional Scores, yearly Composite Scores and Lifetime Composite Scores.
The Institutional Score Rankings will be listed to the right of their respective group. For example, in 2019 Senator Gene Davis scored 100% with Planned Parenthood Action Council of Utah (PPAC), earning him the #1 Ranking with the institution. As such, his Ranking is listed as 1/29 due to his top score out of the 29 Utah Senators.
The yearly Composite Score and Lifetime Composite Score will reflect where the respective legislator fell in comparison to other legislators who fell into the same political ideology. For example, in 2019 Brad Daw ranked 23rd out of 52 Conservatives for the House of Representatives in that ideology and would be Ranked 23/52 Conservative.
Any candidate whose Composite Score or Lifetime Composite Score is a 0 will be ranked according to their party’s ideology, Republican being conservative and Democrat being Liberal. For example, Republican Senator Todd Weiler’s 2019 Composite Score was 0% so he is ranked last, or 22nd out of 22, for that year’s Conservatives.
Note, there are examples where a lawmakers’ ideology does not align with their party. For example, Senator Lyle Hillyard, also a Republican but who scored 5% Liberal in 2019, would be ranked 7th out of the 7 Liberal-leaning Senators. Additionally, Representative Val Potter’s Lifetime Composite Score is 8% Liberal, and as such would be ranked 18th out of 18 Liberals. There are no examples of Democrat legislators falling into the Conservative ideology.
It should be noted there are 29 seats in the Senate and 75 seats in the House.