Since writing Tuesday about the Conversation Voters of New Mexico’s Legislative 2007 Scorecard, I’ve been asked by several people how the group arrives at its scores.
First off: It’s somewhat subjective, which is, of course, the prerogative of any lobbyist group. This year, the group picked a number of bills in which it had an interest and scored lawmakers based on whether they voted the way the group wanted.
But not all bills are equal. Some counted twice in the scoring, while others counted once.
If they were excused, missing votes didn’t count against lawmakers, either. In fact, it had the potential to work in their favor. For example, Rep. Antonio Lujan, D-Las Cruces, was one of a handful of lawmakers to receive a perfect score of 100 percent from the group.
Meanwhile, Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, received a score of 73 percent.
The group’s scoring of House members included 16 bills, but not each bill counted for or against every member of the House, because some died in committees and were only voted on by a handful of representatives.
Lujan missed, but was excused for, six votes that he could have taken on bills the group used in its scoring. Cervantes, by comparison, didn’t miss any votes he could have taken, but the three negative votes the group counted against his score were votes Lujan missed.
I asked Cervantes why he voted against one of them – Senate Bill 693, which would have required that all proposed subdivisions have a permit from the state engineer before they could be approved by local governments.
“This would have given
The bill passed the Senate but, with 14 members absent, was easily killed in the House. If Lujan had been present, would he still have a perfect score?
Now you know how the rankings work. I’m not saying it’s good or bad – just explaining how it works. Conservation Voters is an effective organization, so it’s doing something right.