From The Trussville Tribune staff reports
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The American Conservative Union Foundation (ACUF) has just released its ratings of the 2018 meeting of the Alabama Legislature. ACUF’s Ratings — both federal and state — are an initiative of ACUF’s Center for Legislative Accountability. These ratings are designed to reflect how over 8,000 of the nation’s elected officials view the role of government and illustrate the differences between chambers of the legislature while revealing lawmakers’ positions on a wide variety of issues that directly affect Alabamians.
ACUF reviewed each piece of legislation voted on in both the Senate and House to produce average scores of each chamber, as well as individual scores for each sitting member. According to ACUF’s Year in Review, the Alabama Legislature’s overall conservative score fell slightly compared to the 2017 session (from 62.33 percent to 62.16 percent).
Alabama legislators voted on key issues during the 2018 session. In one or both chambers, they voted to enact protections against Medicaid fraud, extend and raise the hospital tax, allow taxpayer funds to be used to establish public transit, and exempt “economic development professionals” from lobby requirements.
“In the 2018 session, lawmakers of the Alabama Legislature voted to raise hospital taxes in order to coax greater matching funds from the nation’s taxpayers under the federal Medicaid system,” said ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp. “Lawmakers also bypassed the Alabama Constitution to subsidize public transit and committed taxpayers to funding broadband in government-favored areas of the state. In the upcoming session, we urge the Legislature to work toward conservative reforms that limit government interference in the lives of Alabamians.”
Republican Alabama House Representatives earned an average score of 53 percent, while no representatives earned awards for scoring 80 percent or better. Republican Alabama Senators earned an average score of 75 percent, while five senators earned awards for the 2018 session. The overall average for the Alabama Legislature was 62.16 percent.
Click Here to view the 2018 Ratings of Alabama online and Click Here to visit the ACUF website.
For questions or media inquiries regarding ACUF state ratings, email Luke Schneider, Public Affairs Coordinator for the American Conservative Union Foundation, at lschneider@conservative.org.