2017 VA GA scorecard

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From VCDL:

The VCDL General Assembly 2017 Voting Record is now ready for download!


THE WINNERS

The legislator with the best pro-rights voting record in the Senate for 2017 is: Senator Jill Vogel!

The legislator with the best pro-rights voting record in the House for 2017 is: Delegate Matthew Fariss!


TOP 10 IN THE SENATE

1. Jill Vogel
2. Amanda Chase
3. Bill DeStaph Jr.
4. John Cosgrove
5. Bryce Reeves
6. Bill Stanley Jr.
7. Siobhan Dunnavant
8. Emmett Hanger Jr.
9. Richard Stuart
10. Ben Chafin


TOP 10 IN THE HOUSE

1. Matt Fariss
2. Tommy Wright Jr.
3. Tony Wilt
4. Nick Rush
5. James Edmunds II
6. Buddy Fowler
7. Israel O'Quinn
8. Christopher Head
9. Rick Morris
10. Glenn Davis


SOME TAKEAWAYS

In the Senate, the Republican with the lowest score was Frank Ruff with 90%. Overall the Republicans in the Senate did a great job and creamed even the best Democrats.

The Democrats with the best scores were: Lynwood Lewis Jr. (62%), John Edwards (45%), Chap Petersen (44%), and Jeremy McPike (40%). The next score drops off sharply at 28% and goes down from there.

Senator Creigh Deeds, who was once solid on guns, is now at a paltry 19%, along with Senators Barbara Favola and Jennifer Wexton! Basically he's only voting correctly one out of every five votes.

Since there is a race between Senator Vogel and Senator Reeves, who are vying to become Virginia's next Lt. Governor, I want to provide some analysis of the voting record of those two legislators.

Senator Vogel had a perfect voting record and has 54 pro-rights points (each vote on each bill is assigned from -2 to +2 points, depending on what the bill does).

Because of his committee assignments, Senator Reeves had many more chances to vote on gun bills and racked up a whopping 94 pro-rights points, but had a single bad vote worth -2 points, giving him a 98% score. Without that one bad vote, he would have led the pack easily. Delegate Fariss also had 94 pro-rights points, but had no bad votes, putting him at #1 in the House.

While having more chances to vote increases the chances of a bad vote, it also lowers the effect of a bad vote. For example, Delegate Sutterlein also had one bad vote for -2 points, but voted on fewer bills, accumulating 39 pro-rights points. That bad vote, instead of reducing his score by 2%, as it did for Senator Reeves, reduced his score by 5%. Makes sense - the less you vote, the more important each vote becomes. If Jill Vogel had a single bad vote of -2 points, she would have dropped to 96%. That said, we are looking for perfect voting records and Vogel has one.

In the House, the highest Democrat, Delegate Steve Heretick, edged out the lowest Republican, retiring Delegate Dave Albo, by 55% to 48%. Just below Albo is Democrat Michael Mullen with 43%. The Democrat scores drop down to 32% after that and eventually drop to a pitiful 0%.

The Senate had 4 perfect scores (10% of the Senate), while the House had 47 perfect scores (47% of the House)!

Looking at the Democrat scores, overall the Democrat Party continues to be pathetic on supporting both self-defense and liberty.


WHAT'S NEW IN THE VOTING RECORD FOR 2017?

The VCDL General Assembly 2017 Voting Record now includes a breakdown of the actual votes that each legislator cast on a gun bill. This allows everyone to see exactly how each legislator's voting score was determined. This was requested by a Senator and after reviewing the request, we agreed that this made things fairer for everyone involved.


DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY OF THE VOTING RECORD

Click here to download the Voting Record in PDF format:

http://vcdl.org/resources/pdf/General_Assembly_Voting_Score_for_2017.pdf