The Women’s Lobby of Colorado handed out scores to lawmakers based on their performance in the statehouse during the last legislative session. (Photo by Joey Bunch/The Denver Post)
Left-leaning is an understatement for the legislative scorecard released Wednesday evening by the Women’s Lobby of Colorado. Every Democrat except one among the 17 in the Senate got a perfect 100 percent for their voting records on a list of bills chosen by the organization.
Only two of the 34 Democrats in the House missed a perfect score, and those two, Tracy Kraft-Tharp of Arvada and Angela Williams of Denver, scored 91. They lost points for voting against a Democrat-backed bill to create a family and medical leave insurance program and wage replacement program. Because of their votes the bill died, 33-31, in the House.
Not a single Republican in either chamber scored above 73. That mark went to Rep. Kit Roupe of Colorado Springs, a reliable fiscal conservative who lost her first run for the House in 2008 after she on the day she declared her candidacy at the El Paso County Republican caucus meeting. Five Republicans scored 57, including Senate President Bill Cadman of Colorado Springs.
The list of bills and how the Women’s Lobby scored each legislator e.
The lopsided scores can be rationalized based on some of the 14 bills the Women’s Lobby used to calculate the ratings.
While some were bipartisan and passed or failed by narrow margins, some were predictably partisan, such as Republicans’ fetal homicide bill or any legislation that dealt with reproductive rights.
A number of organizations at the end of each session rate the lawmakers, and often the groups’ choices favor one party or another based on the ideological bent of the scorekeepers. Conservative issue groups tend to rank Democrats low, while anti-tax groups give higher marks to Republicans.
“Every year our members choose the bills that are most important to them to include on the scorecard before we crunch the numbers to see how legislators score,” Peg Perl, the president of the Women’s Lobby and the staff lawyer for Colorado Ethics Watch.
“We are disappointed to see that this year there is a greater partisan divide in the scores than in some past years. We will continue to work with bipartisan sponsors and legislators to further policies that support women and working families.”
