Maryland Accountability Project

PRESS RELEASE

February 6, 2006

General Assembly Becomes More Polarized

Leading Up to Election

Democrats, Republicans More Divided in General Assembly

ANNAPOLIS – The General Assembly became slightly more conservative and a lot more polarized during the 2005 Session, according to a report released today by the Maryland Accountability Project, a government watchdog group. The scorecard, an explanation of the bills scored, and accompanying statistics can be downloaded from the organization’s Web site at www.mapscorecard.org.

“Every year, we compile a scorecard that measures political trends in the General Assembly, and we have found that during the 2005 session, liberal voting remained the same while moderate voting declined and conservative voting increased,” said Doug Graham of the Maryland Accountability Project. “This clearly shows increased polarization within the General Assembly where some of those in the middle of the political spectrum have shifted to the right, leaving fewer moderates in the General Assembly.”

"The number of legislators with moderate voting records declined from 28 percent to 24 percent, while those with conservative scores rose 50 percent from 10 percent to 15 percent,” he said. “Since the percentage voting liberal remained at slightly over 60 percent, this indicates the Assembly has grown a bit more polarized over the past year. It is likely a precursor to the strategies of both parties in the November election ahead.”

MAP’s scorecard rated legislators on 25 bills – a cross-section of economic, social, educational, criminal, and regulatory legislation. The bills used included both very public legislation that received substantial media coverage and smaller, more obscure legislation that received little or no attention. Unlike other legislative scorecards, the MAP scorecard is not issue-based, and instead scores the overall voting pattern of state legislators on a larger pool of legislation. Legislators have no advance notice as to which bills MAP will be scoring in a given year.

The MAP scorecard uses a scale of 0-100 with 0 representing a 0% conservative voting record and 100 representing a 100% conservative voting record. MAP does not take positions on the bills scored and uses the conservative position as a baseline for scoring.

The most liberal member of the legislature was Delegate Joanne Benson (D-24) of Prince George’s County with an 8 percent rating. She also won a 2005 Crabbie award last month for missing 146 votes during the 2005 Session, the most of any member of the General Assembly. “I’m not sure what her constituents think about her attendance, but conservatives are probably happy she is missing so many votes,” Graham said. Benson comes from the most liberal voting district in the state, with an average rating of 15 percent. Fellow Prince George’s County Delegate Barbara Frush (D-21) had the second most liberal score with a 9% score.

The most conservative legislator for the third year in a row was Senator Alex Mooney

(R-03), who in 2005 scored 92 percent, his highest score yet. Sen. Janet Greenip (R-33) scored 88 percent. She was in a four-way tie for the ranking of second most conservative member with Del. Joseph Boteler (R-08), Del. Donald Dwyer (R-31), and Del. Warren Miller (R-09A). Dwyer was last year’s most conservative member of the House, but now shares that title with two other delegates.

“No matter where you are on the political spectrum, you want to know how your senator or delegate votes so you can see if they walk the walk, or simply talk the talk,” said Graham, who lives in Linthicum.

As a group, Republicans tended to be more conservative with an average rating of 64 percent in the House and 70 percent in the Senate. Democrats proved more liberal, with an average score of 24 percent in the House and 26 percent in the Senate. There were some exceptions to the rule. The most liberal Republican, Del. Jean Cryor (R-15), had a 24 percent score while the most conservative Democrat was Del. Mary Dulaney James (D-34A) with a 60 percent rating. Several other Democrats had rankings over 50 percent. Senate President Mike Miller (D-27) scored a 32% conservative rating while House Speaker Michael Busch (D-30) scored a 24% rating.

The Maryland Accountability Project (MAP) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to educating citizens about Maryland ’s state government and the activities of state public officials and to generally encouraging citizens to participate in the democratic process to hold public officials accountable. MAP also publishes an attendance scorecard at the beginning of each legislative session. Legislators with the most unexcused absences receive the group’s “Crabbie” award while those with perfect attendance receive “Lighthouse” awards. The 2005 winners were announced last month. More information about MAP can be found on the organization’s Web site at www.mapscorecard.org

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