Kansas Taxpayers Network (KTN) Issues 2008 Legislative “Friend of Taxpayer” Vote Rating
A friend would talk about his “favorite” State Senator and “favorite” State Rep, whom he considered to be fiscal conservatives and would be responsible spending tax dollars. This friend would suggest that State Senator John Vratil and State Rep Cindy Neighbor were fiscal conservatives. I would protest and ask: “What are their KTN’s scores that prove these legislators are friends of the taxpayers?”
Yesterday the Kansas Taxpayers Network (KTN) released their 2008 legislative vote rating scoring the fiscal votes of the 165 members of the Kansas legislature July 22. This is the 13th legislative session that has measured legislators’ fiscal votes on taxes, spending, regulation, protecting the rule of law, and promoting a free market economy in Kansas. KTN scored legislators on both their 2008 votes as well as their lifetime votes in the Kansas legislature since 1996. The 2008 scores are posted on KTN’s Kansastaxpayers.com web site. [Here is the direct link to the State Senate scores, and here is the direct link to the State Rep scores. ]
“There are eight senators and sixty-three house members who scored 75 percent or higher in KTN’s 2008 scorecard,” said Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director of KTN. A 75 percent or higher scorecard is ranking these legislators as taxpayer friendly on KTN’s rankings. Three house members and two senators scored 100% on KTN’s 2008 scorecard. They are: Rep. Clay Aurand, R-Courtland; Rep. Jeff Colyer, R-Overland Park; Rep. Sharon Schwartz, R-Washington; Sen. Tim Huelskamp, R-Meade; and Sen. Dennis Pyle, R-Hiawatha.
“The 2008 rankings were influenced by the dominant issue of this year’s legislature, the proposed expansion of the western Kansas power plant at Holcomb,” said Peterjohn. “KTN used a number of the legislative votes from both houses on this scorecard. Energy and the government restrictions on generating electricity that produce carbon dioxide are likely to be the top issue in the 2008 Kansas legislative elections.”
What were the new 2008 KTN scores for my friend’s favorite legislators? State Senator John Vratil scored 40.0% in 2008, which shows improvement from his lifetime score of 18.2%. State Rep Cindy Neighbor scored 16.7% in 2008, which was worse than her lifetime score of 21.3%. I rest my case that neither Vratil nor Neighbor are fiscal conservatives. Neither Vratil nor Neighbor are “taxpayer friendly.”
Why are such low “taxpayer friendly” scores from KTN typical for “Traditional Republicans” in the Kansas Legislature?
Tags: Fiscal responsibility, Kansas House, Kansas Senate, Legislative Vote Rating
July 24th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
KTN has got to be one of the stupidest websites around.
So the guy doesn’t like school financing in his city - move.
Does he know that one reason gas is so expensive is that the US dollar has tanked so buying oil is even more expensive.
What else is related to tanked currency ? Debt.
Reduce US dept and gas - everyother foreign commodity will do down in effective cost due to increased dollar value.
Sure some of those legislators voted against the coal plant screw up - quick, what does a rail plant have to do with a coal plant 200 miles away ?
Those legislators saw that continuing to power our houses with greenhouse gas producing coal is bad for everyone including Kansans.