{"id":4707,"date":"2009-07-02T15:18:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-02T21:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/07\/what-you-need-to-know-about-legislative-scorecards\/"},"modified":"2009-07-02T15:18:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-02T21:18:00","slug":"what-you-need-to-know-about-legislative-scorecards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/07\/what-you-need-to-know-about-legislative-scorecards\/","title":{"rendered":"What you need to know about legislative scorecards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\" class=\"MsoNormal\">Reading this year\u2019s legislative scorecard put out by the Albuquerque-based <a href=\"http:\/\/www.acinm.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Association of Commerce and Industry<\/a>, you would think Do\u00f1a Ana County\u2019s legislative delegation is pretty unfriendly to business.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\" class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cDon\u2019t buy it,\u201d the Las Cruces Sun-News\u2019 Walt Rubel writes in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lcsun-news.com\/dona_ana_news\/ci_12706317?source=rss\" target=\"_blank\">a recent commentary<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\" class=\"MsoNormal\">ACI is one of a number of groups that put out such rankings following legislative sessions. Rubel writes that, while the scorecards \u201cmay have some value to the members of those organizations in letting them know who is supportive of their pet projects, they are of little value to voters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\" class=\"MsoNormal\">Why? Such scorecards \u201cinvariably favor one party over the other based on the special interest they are representing,\u201d Rubel writes. In the ACI report, for example, the top rankings all went to Republicans, while the bottom spots were all held by Democrats.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\" class=\"MsoNormal\">But that isn\u2019t the biggest problem, Rubel writes:<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\" class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<blockquote style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cThe greatest failing of all these scorecards is that they are incredibly shallow. They provide a snapshot of the legislative session, and not the panoramic view needed to truly and fairly evaluate your senator or representative.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cThere were 896 bills introduced in the House and 693 in the Senate this past session. That doesn\u2019t count memorials and resolutions. The ACI rankings are based entirely on 23 House bills and 17 Senate bills.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\" class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\" class=\"MsoNormal\">I\u2019ve highlighted some aspects of this before in writing about <a href=\"http:\/\/haussamen.blogspot.com\/2007\/06\/heres-how-conservation-voters-scores.html\">Conservation Voters New Mexico\u2019s 2007 legislative scorecard<\/a>. The bottom line: Such scorecards are designed to help push an organization\u2019s agenda, not give voters unbiased information to help them make decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reading this year\u2019s legislative scorecard put out by the Albuquerque-based Association of Commerce and Industry, you would think Do\u00f1a Ana County\u2019s legislative delegation is pretty unfriendly to business. \u201cDon\u2019t buy it,\u201d the Las Cruces Sun-News\u2019 Walt Rubel writes in a recent commentary. ACI is one of a number of groups that put out such rankings [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}