Alabama Policy Institute rolls out legislative scorecard — ‘They’re going to know in advance how to make an ‘A’ on the test’

On Tuesday, the Alabama Policy Institute announced it was launching a so-called “legislative scorecard” for the 2021 legislative session that would grade members of the legislature in three areas, which include votes, attendance and public profile.

Topics for “key votes” for the 2021 session’s scorecard involve what API says efforts to restore the “balance of power” between the executive and legislative branches and issues, including medicinal marijuana, taxation and COVID-19 relief.

“As we have seen so often on the national level, having an ‘R’ or a ‘D’ next to your name does not mean you are conservative or liberal,” API President and CEO Caleb Crosby said in a release on Tuesday. “This scorecard will highlight that reality. But this time, we’ll be looking right here at home.”

During an appearance on Mobile radio’s FM Talk 106.5 on Tuesday, former State Sen. Phil Williams, API chief policy officer and general counsel, explained the criteria and how legislators could make an “A” on the scorecard.

“The bottom line — we at the Alabama Policy Institute — we are intent upon issuing an annual scorecard on how legislators vote on a number of things and how they act in terms of basically serving their constituents,” he explained. “There will be several components to this. And by the way, this is going to be a look forward. We’re not going to grade them on things that happened in the past. We are going to preannounce what we’re rating so that they won’t be able to say later on, ‘Well, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know you were even watching or cared about that. I might have changed my vote.’ But they’re going to know in advance how to make an ‘A’ on the test if you get my drift.”

Read the scorecard criteria here:

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.