A new legislative scorecard highlights just how politically polarized the Illinois state legislature is on social and economic justice issues.
Citizen Action/Illinois, a public interest organization and a progressive political coalition, released its 98th General Assembly scorecard last week, and no state Republican legislator scored higher than a "poor" rating.
Overall, 45 state representatives and 19 state senators, all of whom are Republicans, received "poor" scores between 10 percent to 49 percent. Meanwhile, no Democratic state lawmaker scored lower than 50 percent.
The scorecard, which gauges "each official’s dedication to social and economic justice," is based on a selection of significant votes taken by the 98th General Assembly, which started in January 2013 and ends after the upcoming fall veto session. Citizen Action/Illinois analyzed 25 votes in the House and 23 votes in the Senate on legislation involving health care, education, consumer protection, civil rights and other topics.
A total of 20 Illinois House members and seven state senators, all Democrats, had an "excellent" voting record in the 2013 and 2014 sessions, scoring between 90 percent and 100 percent. The remaining Democratic 98th General Assembly members received either "good" or "mediocre" scores between 50 percent to 89 percent.
"While there are a fair number of Democrats that scored low, ... unfortunately the entirety of the Republican caucus on both sides scored poor," said Joshua Collins, Citizen Action/Illinois' legislative director. "This year, we didn't have a single Republican legislator that scored mediocre, as we have in the past."
As a whole, both the state House and Senate averaged "mediocre" ratings, earning scores of 56.5 percent and 60.9 percent, respectively. The legislature's political polarization is "why the average score got brought down so much" in both chambers, Collins noted.
State lawmakers might have an opportunity to improve their marks on Citizen Action/Illinois' 98th General Assembly scorecard if the organization decides to score any of the legislation that comes up during the fall veto session, Collins said.
For the scorecard, Citizen Action/Illinois looked at each lawmaker's vote on Medicaid expansion and full implementation of the Affordable Care Act; restoration of Medicaid services cut under the “SMART Act”; advisory ballot referenda on the minimum wage and the so-called millionaire's tax; corporate tax loophole reform; protections for employees paid via "payday cards"; marriage equality legislation; an anti-bullying policy for schools and utility rate hikes, to name a few.
"The 98th General Assembly saw major movement in terms of implementation of the President’s Affordable Care Act through Medicaid expansion, as well as a protracted battle to bring marriage equality to Illinois and incrementally raise additional revenue to make some restorations from previous years’ cuts in the budget," Citizen Action/Illinois' scorecard reads. "There were also continued efforts by well-financed special interests such as electric utilities and the insurance industry to pass legislation that was not in the best interests of average consumers."
The scorecard includes two votes on education legislation: comprehensive sex ed reform, HB 2675, and a temporary moratorium on new virtual charter schools outside of Chicago, HB 494. Both pieces of legislation passed the state legislature in 2013 and were signed into law by Gov. Pat Quinn. Citizen Action/Illinois backed both bills.
The public interest group's scorecard also factored in the "anti-worker" pension reform bill, SB 1, approved by the General Assembly in December.
"The reason we selected these is because we put a very concentrated amount of time into advocacy on these bills," Collins said, adding that the group also focused on legislation that impacts a large number of residents.
Although the scorecard is only one measure of how legislators perform in Springfield, Collins said he hopes it will serve as a useful tool for Illinoisans.
"These are issues that we believe are very important to a wide swath of the electorate," he added. "We want them to be able to look at this and gauge how their elected officials vote on particular issues."
Take a look at how state lawmakers fared on the scorecard:
'"Excellent" Ratings for 98th General Assembly
House
Senate
"Good" Ratings for 98th General Assembly
House
Senate
"Mediocre" Ratings for 98th General Assembly
House
Senate
"Poor" Ratings for 98th General Assembly
House
Senate
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