Announcing: the 2018 monoblogue Accountability Project

For the twelfth year in a row, I have graded all the legislators in the Maryland General Assembly (189 this year, thanks to the passing and replacement of a State Senator) based on their voting patterns on a number of key issues. Beginning with sine die back in April, I started looking into floor votes trying to find those which reflected conservative principles, with an eye on civil liberties as well. The final product, all 20 pages, can be found right here or, until the 2018 election, in its usual sidebar location.

Once again the number of relevant issues dictated I use all floor votes, as I had in the early years before committee votes were made readily available. Also. three of the 25 votes are veto override votes, two from legislation carried over from 2017 and the other from a bill proposed this session.

Because it’s an election year, I have also rearranged the lists of legislators in both House of Delegates and Senate to reflect whether they are not seeking re-election, are unopposed (like my local Delegate, Carl Anderton), running for another office, or simply looking for another term. (Hint: the majority don’t deserve one. If you can’t even get one vote on my list correct, begone!)

Also because it’s an election year and the governor is a Republican (not the norm in Maryland), the partisan divide was harder than ever. Among Senate Democrats there were literally fewer than ten correct votes from a group of 33. Unfortunately, with a governor furiously tacking to the left to preserve his perceived chances at re-election, a number of feckless GOP legislators followed him. The overall number of correct votes was, by far, the lowest in this four-year cycle. You can see this for yourself because I’m leaving the 2015-17 reports available as part of a long-term process to show trends for this term.

As I’ve stated before, this will be the final rendition of the mAP for Maryland. However, sometime in late summer I should have the Delaware edition complete for this two-year session of their General Assembly (the 149th.) If you were sharp-eyed this past weekend you would have noticed I did a soft opening for this edition as I worked on this post Saturday morning and wanted to have the link available. If not, take a look and behold – and vote accordingly later this month and in November.