Here are Anchor Rising’s legislative rankings of the members of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, based on the five sets of legislative votes that have been analyzed over the past two weeks. The idea is to try to capture each legislator’s propensities towards taxes, cost-of-government and cost-of-mandates, attitudes that are to difficult assess based on a single vote. The scoring system is explained here, including links to the posts containing details on the bills that were considered and the vote tallies. Higher scores signal consistent votes against raising taxes, for lowering cost of government and more sensible regulation of municipal affairs.

As I said to Matt Allen last night I don’t expect a ranking number placed next to a legislator’s name to be the end of the discussion, but rather a starting point for people looking for more information about the positions and policies their legislator supports. Or maybe someone could convince me that the legislators who scored near zero (or below) are really the ones who are making the best decisions for Rhode Island (but I doubt it).

I will be happy to post responses from any legislator who’d like to comment on their ranking, explain why they voted for or against a certain bill, what else should be considered, why they think the system is flawed or why it’s brilliant, etc. I will also post responses from any challengers who’d like to discuss why they believe they will do a better job representing their districts than the legislator listed here on the issues that were considered in assembling the ranking and on any issue a challenger thinks is important.

And now, to the numbers…