With the 2022 election cycle upon us, many incumbent members of the Alabama Legislature are making their reelection plans. Many of those will likely run on their conservative bonafides, especially during the primary portion of the election.
Throughout the 2021 session, the Alabama Policy Institute tracked what it deemed to be “key votes,” which included efforts to restore the “balance of power” between the executive and legislative branches and issues, including medicinal marijuana, taxation and COVID-19 relief.
During an appearance on Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5’s “The Jeff Poor Show,” API chief policy officer and general counsel Phil Williams, formerly a member of the State Senate, said those results would soon be made available to the public. Despite having a supermajority in both chambers, Republican legislators did not score very high as a body.
“API, we came out, and we preannounced the criteria for the scorecards,” Williams said. “No one could say they were surprised. And it does include what we call key votes — votes that we took a position on firmly, and we’re going to watch if whether they align with our conservative policies. We are also grading them on attendance, believe it or not. We have two senators that did not even show up at all this entire session in Montgomery. And then we’ve got things like, ‘Do they have a public presence?’ and ‘Did they raise local taxes?’ through local bills that people may not see coming, but they do.”
“So yeah, it’s going to be really interesting,” he continued. “We’ve got the raw data, and the actual scorecard is going to come out in about three weeks. But the raw data right now shows that — like, for instance, 35 state senators — only 10 of those scared 80% or higher, and only four of those scored a hundred percent. I’ve got two senators that scored worse than most Democrats, one of which I guess is down there in your area. I’ll just go ahead and say it — Jack Williams scoreboard abysmally on the overall. He’s got something like a — I’m looking at it right now. He’s got a 51 [percent] in the raw data, and there’s only one Republican less than him. And basically, there were three Democrats who scored better than him. That’s unusual for someone who’s a Republican to be that moderate and/or liberal in their overall score.”
“The House is very similar,” Williams added. “The House has got 105 members. Only 10 scored a 100 out of 105. And I think roughly — about 40% of them scored 80 or above, 80% or above. But we’ve got … some Republicans in the House — we have a number of Democrats who scored higher than them.”
Williams indicated the results would be widely distributed throughout the election season, which he said could be a factor in determining their campaign’s success.
“So, there’s a vast difference between being a conservative and being a Republican,” he said. “And we’re going to watch — all these guys are going to run. They’re going to talk about how conservative they are. This scorecard is going to be out there. We’ll have a hard copy, a mail copy, online. It’ll be out there. We’ll see who draws competition and how this scorecard plays into it.”
@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.
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