64th Assembly Halftime Report: Just the Stats…

The 64th Legislative Assembly hit their halftime mark last Thursday, February 26th. As Rob posted about then, 649 of 936 bills and resolutions survived their chamber of introduction, with 257 being killed and 4 withdrawn. The remaining 26 await action in their chambers of introduction; these are Concurrent Resolutions which do not require determination by crossover.

As we have been hinting at since before this session began, we will be evaluating each legislator based on their votes as observed through a conservative to near libertarian viewpoint. These results are still being tallied, but we can tell you that 90 and 50 (House and Senate, respectively) “marker bills” have been selected to evaluate the voting trends of the Legislature. This many gives us a good sampling without becoming unmanageable, but at the same time enough to account for small nuances. In short, it better adjusts for individual concerns of each legislator over individual aspects of an individual bill.

As mentioned, those results are still being tabulated, and they always generate good debate. In the interim we felt it may be interesting (and a bit fun) to look at overall statistics, without judgments on whether a vote was or wasn’t aligning with a marker bill, from a somewhat sports-themed viewpoint as you may see during a halftime show.  This looks at all 936 bills introduced (well, to be honest the agency bills were dropped), and how well each Legislator may have “played their game” to score via getting their ideas passed (as well as some other fun stats we made up along the way).

Since this analysis was done for curiosity and fun, take it as such. By no means is anyone suggesting a Legislator’s individual success be solely measured by bill counts. With that squarely in mind, lets break down the stats.

Most Points Scored

This category is a straightforward look at who got the most bills passed through each chamber as a primary sponsor, and adding sponsorships and cosponsorships together. Cosponsorships include bills from the other chamber (or league for purposes of this post).

House League

Primary Sponsorships–

Rep. Keiser (R-47) posted a whooping 21 bills passed, outpacing his district teammate Rep. Klemin (R) and Rep K. Koppelman (R-13) with 11. The closest democrat was Rep. Delmore of District 43 at 5 bills passed so far.

Overall Sponsorships–

Rep. Delmore has her name on 40 bills passed through the House to date. Rep Keiser is right on her heals at 39

Senate League

Primary Sponsorships–

Sen. J Lee (R) of Dist. 13 claims the top spot at 14 bills with her listed in pole position passing. Sens. Heckaman (Dist 23) and Mathern (Dist 11)  are the closest democrats with 7 apiece

Overall Sponsorships–

Sen. Armstrong (R-36) shows he can legislate strong by combining 12 of his own bills with 55 others to lead decisively in this category at 67 passed.

Most Attempts

This category is also self-evident — who filed the most bills both as a sponsor and overall, regardless of if they passed.

House League

Primary Sponsorships–

Naturally, it should not come as a surprise (based on the previous category) that Rep Keiser takes this category with 23 filings. Rep. Hanson (D-16) is right behind him, and the closest democrat, at 20.

Overall Sponsorships–

District 27’s Rep. Beadle (R) was on the line for 70 bills, with Delmore being the closest democrat at 53

Senate League

Primary Sponsorships–

Sen. J. Lee posts a respectable 14 bills, with Sen. O’Connell (D-6) being the closest rival party Senator. He filed 9 as a primary sponsor

Overall Sponsorships–

Armstrong shows that you can only make the shots you take, and he took a total of 82 between his and other bills. Sen. Dotzenrod of District 26 was the closest democrat with 44 going into the hopper with his name emblazoned on them.

Batting Average

As I am sure you can guess, this stat looks at how many bills were passed of those filed, but it also gives credit to those with more “at bats” (i.e. bills filed). Sponsoring and passing 1 is no real feat of lawmaking prowess when compared to a Legislator who sponsors several and passes say 3/4th’s of them.

House League

Primary Sponsorships–

Keiser reigns supreme again, putting up a .913 average. Hanson batted a .150, with Rep. Oversen (D-42) slugging her way to a .272 as the next closest party teammate (she passed 11 of her own bills).

Overall Sponsorships–

Beadle noses out Rep. Maragos (R-3) in this category. Maragos had a higher average of .574, but was part of 35 passed bills compared to Beadles 38. Beadle put up a respectable .543

Senate League

Primary Sponsorships–

J. Lee is on fire with a perfect batting average for her own bills. Mathern is not doing too badly himself for the democrats, with a .779 for bills he sponsored.

Overall Sponsorships–

Armstrong leads the team effort, with a .923 average. Dotzenrod (.523) noses out Heckaman (.732) for the democrats only because he was part of sponsoring 44 bills versus 41

Shutout

We look at who has had all their bills killed in this category. This is for primary sponsors only, as no one is zero’ed out overall (well, yet).

House League

Senate League

League Stats

Each Representative sponsored on average of 4.43 of their own bills and cosponsored 20.74, for an average of around 25.17 total. They passed 2.5 of their own and 15.05 overall of each bill they were a part of. This amounts to a .565 and .598 batting average, respectively.

The Senate League showed their members were a little busier. Each league member put in 5.8 bills on average with their name in pole position, and jumped onto an average of 25.47 other bills.  They passed 4.06 of their own bills and helped a total of 20.87 make it over to the house each, with league averages of .697 and .667 respectively.

MiVP

Even if you are not a sports fan, it is pretty safe to assume you know that MVP stands for Most Valuable Player. We may name one of these for each league at the end of the second half, but as we reviewed stats for this session to date we saw one standout who deserves their own award — the Most inVisible Player, or MiVP for short. The MiVP goes to that Legislator who  not only didn’t file a single one of their own bills, but didn’t see merit in cosponsoring any others. It is understandable when, if you have no ideas, you don’t put in a bill just to put one in. But there must be at least one bill from at least one other Legislator out there which you can get behind as a cosponsor.

The 64th Legislative Assembly’s MiVP is none other than Rep. Bob Martinson (R-35). While a few other Legislators joined him in the zero primary sponsorship category, only he posted the double-goose egg. This distinction earns the below special clip from the movie “Office Space”… ironically of the Bobs (if you have seen the movie you will know).