Brian’s Utah Weblog

Just like the House post, but for the 2007 Senate. Two thousand eight will be coming soon.

This is a tally of every Utah Senate roll call vote on a bill from the 2007 session where a majority of Democrats voted one way and a majority of Republicans voted the other. These usually include the closest and most controversial issues of the year so they give a better idea of a legislator’s performance than counting every single vote. About three out of every four votes in the Senate are unanimous and uncontroversial. One time this year the Senate even took a roll call vote over whether to adjourn for the day (it was unanimous).

Purely partisan procedural roll calls are very rare in both houses of the legislature and do not affect the results posted here.

D Votes are votes with the majority of Democrats. R Votes are with Republicans. Democratic Rating is the proportion of votes cast with Democrats with absences counted as one half vote for each partisan leaning.

The legislators on the 46 partisan votes of 2007 Utah Senate,

I’ve processed all the roll call votes from the 2008 Utah legislature’s General Session and there are some interesting results to report.

Let’s take a look at the question of who is the Scalia and Thomas of the legislature. Who is it that votes most like another legislator (not including missed votes)? The answer is that Senators Curt Bramble (R-Provo) and Dan Eastman (R-Bountiful) voted together 98.9% of the time. That’s an astounding 614 out of the 621 roll call votes both attended in 2008.

And they sit right next to each other.

Even when they aren’t copying each other’s work, they still give Utah’s teachers plenty of trouble. Bramble was Senate sponsor of the late unlamented voucher proposal and Eastman supported it.

The closest Democrats were Representatives Carol Spackman Moss (D-SLC) and Phil Riesen (D-SLC) with a 98.7% rate of agreement. And, yes, they sit together, too.

Note that 1008 of the 1437 roll calls on bills in 2008 have been unanimous and another 83 had a lone dissenter, so even the oddest of odd couples have been in agreement most of the time. The legislators like to pad their schedule with the chance to vote individually in favor of puppies and Christmas and the like.

The Democrat and Republican closest in their voting were Rep. Bud Bowman (R-Cedar City) and Rep. Karen Morgan (D-SLC) who agreed 95.82%. In the Senate the closest were Senator Mike Dmitrich (D-Price) and Senator Kevin Van Tassell (R-Vernal) who voted together 95.02% of the time.

The most likely to disagree were Rep. Mike Morley (R-Spanish Fork) and brand new Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck (D-SLC). They voted together only 77.09%. Since 69% of House votes were unanimous or had one lone dissenter, that’s not much agreement. The farthest apart Senators were Senator Margaret Dayton (R-Provo) and Senator Scott McCoy (D-SLC) who agreed 82.5% of the time. Astoundingly, 81.3% of Senate votes were unanimous or had but one dissenter.

The closest pairs:

1. Bramble and Eastman, 98.89%
2. Bramble and Sen. Carlene Walker (R-SLC), 98.81%
3. Walker and Sen. Wayne Niederhauser (R-Sandy), 98.71%
4. Moss and Riesen, 98.67%
5. Eastman and Walker, 98.65%

This is a continuation of the post on partisan House roll calls in 2005 (q.v.). More of these are coming, up through this year.

The legislators on the 76 partisan votes of 2007 Utah House,

This weekend we Salt Lake County Democrats got together at the library (Democrats like books) and elected our new legislative district chairs.  It was a nice chance to see people from your neighborhood and across the valley.  Each hour on the hour one set of districts’ leaders left and another arrived.  In the middle there were a few minutes to talk with people from other parts of the county.

In two weeks, it will be even better.  The Salt Lake County Democratic Convention will convene on Saturday, the 12th of April 2008 at Jordan High School (go Beetdiggers!) at 9880 S 98 E.  Jordan High is across Sego Lily Drive from the Sandy TRAX stop.

Everyone is welcome.  Yes, everyone.  Not just delegates.  Show up at 8:00 AM for issue caucuses and talk about issues and candidates with informed, active citizens all morning.  It’ll be great.

In national news, Texas they held their county conventions yesterday.  It’s a part of the Texas two-step, a multi-level process where party leadership and national delegates are selected according to multiple interlocking systems.  As the Texas process goes on, the state party apparently doesn’t even try to keep track of whom delegates are pledged to and no one knows exactly how the results came out.

Molly Ivins would have loved to be here to explain all this to us.

This is a continuation of the post on partisan House roll calls in 2005 (q.v.). More of these are coming, including the recent sessions.

I recall that Sen. Buttars was ill during this session.  His “slightly more moderate” rating reflects missed votes, not any sense of decency or compassion.

The legislators on the 51 partisan votes of 2006 Utah Senate,

Yes, it’s the best night to be a citizen in Utah. Get out to your neighborhood caucus meeting and meet your neighbors.

Democrats do it. Salt Lake County here.
Even Republicans do it.

This is a continuation of the post on partisan House roll calls in 2005 (q.v.). More of these are coming, including the recent sessions.

Utah Representative Dave Hogue (R-Riverton) retired after 2006 to run for Senate. He recently reentered electoral politics to run for his old seat. There was a twist, though, as he filed to run as a Democrat. The Riverton area is strongly Republican with the Republican winning 66% of the vote in 2006 for House District 52 so his prospects will depend on name recognition and constituent memory. The history here indicates that Hogue has always been a centrist, crossing party lines more than one third of the time. Democrats should expect no different if he rejoins the House.

The legislators on the 71 partisan votes of 2006 Utah House,

Just like the post on the house (q.v.), with all the caveats. Two thousand six, 2007, and 2008 are coming up along with lists of votes that divide partisans in the Utah legislature and some other exciting analysis tools that allow us to compare issue and ideological trends.

The legislators on the 56 partisan votes of 2005 Utah Senate,

Note: Senator Paula Julander (D-SLC) retired mid-session and was replaced by Senator Scott McCoy.

This is the first of a fairly long series of posts that may take a while to complete.

This table is a result of analysis of every roll call vote from the 2005 Utah Legislature.  Later years will be in future posts.  The 66 roll call votes where a majority of Democrats voted differently from a majority of Republicans are considered for each legislator and one tally is made in the D Votes column for each vote with the majority of Democrats, one in the R Votes column for each vote with the majority of Republicans, and one in the Missed Votes column for each absence.  Most roll calls are nearly unanimous with Republicans and Democrats voting the same so this list will not reflect any legislator’s total absenteeism.

The Democratic Rating is the percentage of all partisan votes that agreed with the majority of Democrats.  Half a vote is assigned for absentees.  A Republican rating would be the difference between the Democratic Rating and 100%.  Therefore the highest Republican rating would be Representative Brad Daw (R- Orem) with 96.21%.

The legislators on the 66 partisan votes of 2005 Utah House Of Representatives,

Note:  Rep. Ty McCartney (D-SLC) retired after the first partisan vote of the session to take a job in the Mayor Rocky Anderson administration.  He was replaced by Representative Larry Wiley.

Every four years the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Convention set rules for the next presidential nomination cycle. These rules include the dates on which state parties may take the “first determining step” toward choosing pledged delegates. That first determining step is usually the state’s primary or caucus. Before that step, there can be no bias toward choosing any particular delegate pledged for any particular candidate.

Michigan and Florida’s state Democratic Parties ignored the rules and now are unable to come up with a plan to select delegates. In 2004, Utah faced even harder challenges than Florida or Michigan do and our Democratic Party ran an organized, efficient, popular primary that seated all our delegates at the 2004 convention in Boston.

In 1996 and 2000 the Delaware legislature chose run a presidential preference primary earlier than the Democratic National Committee allowed. Delaware wanted to grab the limelight of being first in the nation. The Democratic National Committee rejected the plan to choose delegates based on the early primary. Both times the Delaware Democratic Party wrote a new plan that included caucuses later on to select real delegates who were then listed on the roll.

In 2004 the District Of Columbia legislature chose to run a presidential preference primary before all the states. D.C. wanted attention to focus candidates on the issue of statehood. The Democratic National Committee followed its precedent and rejected the plan. The D.C. Democratic Party wrote a plan that selected delegates based on a lated caucus and those delegates were seated.

And in 2008 Michigan and Florida legislatures decided to run a presidential preference primary earlier than the rules allowed. The Republican National Committee responded by dropping those states’ superdelegates (yes, Republicans have them, but not very many) and cutting their delegate counts in half. The Democratic National Committee followed its precedent and rejected plans submitted by the state Democratic Parties to use those elections to select delegates.

Now Florida and Michigan could write new plans to use caucuses as their first committed step and select delegates. But the state party leaders in both states are partisans for a candidate whose campaign believes that it doesn’t have the skills to organize in caucuses. As a result, party leaders in both states refuse to hold a caucus and insist that only a primary will do.

It could be argued that making the decision between primaries and caucuses after the contest begins is unfair to the candidate who is prepared to organize a caucus. However the precedent was established in 2004, 2000, and 1996 that state Democratic Parties get to make that choice, even if their delegate selection plan is late. The scant evidence that one candidate under performs in caucuses is more a media creation than a statistical conclusion, anyway. Furthermore, primaries are a more democratic way to select candidates than caucuses. So we should all be looking forward to new primaries in Michigan and Florida this Spring.

In 2004 the Utah Democratic Party showed Florida and Michigan the way to do it. The three-fourths Republican legislature knew who their candidate would be and canceled Utah’s primary as a mean-spirited stab at the minority. Energetic young Democratic chairman Donald Dunn stepped up to organize a firehouse primary instead.

The Utah Democratic Party borrowed space in public buildings across the state to set up polling places. Mostly it was libraries rather than the traditional firehouses; we Utahns love to read and better fire codes have reduced the need to build firehouses in every community. Radio ads went on the air and there was a statewide media blitz to attract Democrats to the polls. On primary day volunteers across the state spread out to take the pulse of the public.

I headed out early to run the polls in the Salt Lake County South Jordan library. All day and into the night I took took registration forms, kept the polling book, and handed ballots to Democrats, independents, and even a few Republicans from across our great state. Salt Lake Tribune reporter Dan Harrie visited our polling place to see how the primary was going. A local Republican activist came to vote in our primary because there was a candidate on our ballot she wanted to support more than Bush. (She whispered to me who it was, but it’s a secret ballot so I’m never repeating it). Hundreds of citizens from the heavily Republican area came in to mark their choice.

Statewide turnout was over fifteen thousand. That was as many as voted in our 2000 primary, but not nearly as many as we had in 2008. At the Salt Lake City main library, the lines filled up the main atrium of the building. We made a giant splash in the news. People learned about the mendacity of our Republican legislators and that we had a healthy Democratic Party in Utah.

I’m proud of our 2004 primary. And we did it without any state support and with not one state dollar. I don’t know exactly how much it cost, but we didn’t have a lot of money so it couldn’t have been much.

Now in 2008 we see Michigan and Florida Democratic Parties can’t seem to get it together to hold a primary. So far they’ve spent a lot of time whining that the Republican Florida legislature and Republican Michigan Senate won’t take care of it for them and ruled out doing it themselves. Utah has shown that it’s entirely possible. The only conclusion is that these states are too lazy or incompetent to do the right thing. The Democrats of those states should dispense with their current leadership at the next available party leadership election.

Perhaps both states want to play a game of chicken with the Democratic National Committee. They might like to establish that they can select delegates in any manner they please, even outside the established rules. There is a procedure to appeal to the whole body of the Democratic National Convention to be added to the roll. It is mandated to be the very first order of business at the convention in Denver.

Florida and Michigan aren’t the closest of states in partisan preference, but they could be considered swing states some years. If the local parties argue that excluding their proposed slates of delegates, chosen based on the invalid plans rejected by the Democratic National Committee, could lose votes in November perhaps delegates from the other states might be persuaded to add them to the roll. It would violate any reasonable sense of fairness or democracy to seat delegates chosen according to those rejected plans, but it might happen.

Adding those delegates to the roll would be extremely unwise. Our nation is at war and the media love the Republican candidate who is an established war hero. Democrats have enough trouble proving to the American people that our candidates are tough enough to lead in wartime. A candidate who can’t stand up to rule breakers here at home can hardly hope to prove that he will stand up to nefarious forces abroad. A candidate who can hold firm against his own local parties in Michigan and Florida will win enough support with firm resolve and commitment to justice to overcome any sour grapes within those local parties’ leadership. Even in Michigan and Florida themselves, a strong leader should win more votes than a poor negotiator.

From today’s Washington Post:

It sounds like maybe they spent their time visiting Park City instead. Sure, most Utah Democrats are white and Utahns in general are very well educated but “affluent” is an exaggeration.

Still, there are worse things the East Coast press corps could think of us.