BillsandVotes.com hit the 400 vote mark this weekend, with 402 total votes posted. Of those, 198 are scored - 136 in the Minnesota House, 62 in the Minnesota Senate.
With hundreds of 2010 roll call votes to go, clear voting patterns are already emerging. "I'm really pleased with the way the dynamic scoring application is working," said site owner Bob Shipman. "If you look at the member scores, the percentages of correct votes track closely with what we know about individual legislators and the four House and Senate Caucuses in general."
"It's no surprise, for example, that House Republicans Mark Buesgens and Joyce Peppin are at the top of the House GOP list," said Shipman. "Nor is it surprising that Larry Howes and Jim Abeler are at the bottom of the list." Ray Vandeveer is by far the best performing member of the Senate GOP Caucus, which is living up to its reputation as the Little Toy Caucus. They've pushed some great floor amendments this year, but there is little debate."
Also, a number of Republicans show low scores in the property rights policy area. Shipman said many Republicans got caught between their allegiance to the Sportingperson Community and the core Republican issue of private property rights. Most of those votes came as amendments to the Omnibus Bonding Bill (HF 2700) and HF 2624, the Omnibus Woodland Critters Finance Bill, which doled out millions in new state revenue gained through the sales tax hike passed in 2008.
"Property rights are more important than critical habbytat, whatever that is," Shipman said.
As for DFL legislators, overall scores are predictably low. Retiring House Democrat Mary Ellen Otremba ranks highest with an overall score of just 45 percent.
"The most important scores, of course, are the DFL leadership scores," Shipman said. "And those are really scary. BillsandVotes.com has compiled a list of DFL House and Senate committee chairs. Their scores show how pathetically out of touch this gang of old seniority matrons really is. Don't take my word for it - look at the votes."