Most Comprehensive Analysis Ever Conducted in Texas finds Numerous Lawmakers Engaging in Fraudulent Party Identification. Texas State Rep Jacey Jetton of Katy/Richmond ranks near the bottom of the pack engaging in fraudulent party identification.
The 2024 Presidential election may be the most critical in our nation due to the radically different visions both Presidents Trump and Biden have for our country. And while enormous attention has been placed on these two candidates, the election will also have a major consequence on the direction of Texas with all 181 seats in the state’s legislature up for grab.
As Christian voters head to the ballot box on March 5th, they should take a close look at a just released study by the Institute for Legislative Analysis. It reveals that like the differences between Trump and Biden, our state lawmakers also have radically different views – especially amongst the Republicans.
In fact, the ILA study claimed a number of Republican lawmakers have been engaging in what the organization describes as “fraudulent party identification”. This is based on their data which revealed the voting of certain “Republican” lawmakers was statistically more aligned with the Democratic party rather than the Republican. The ILA study represents the most comprehensive vote record analysis ever conducted on the Texas legislature, made up of over 20,000 individual votes and 217 in-depth policy analyses.
The ILA examined an expansive set of issues ranging from tax and fiscal policy to Second Amendment rights and education. The analysis also included a number of “hidden” amendments and votes which were not widely reported by the media. The issues covered that may be of particular interest to Christian voters include discrimination by the state’s public universities on the basis of faith, the teaching of human sexuality in school, and the ability of state prosecutors to refuse to enforce law surrounding abortion. A full list of the policies evaluated can be found on the ILA website.
While traditional “scorecards” issued by organizations are usually based on lawmaker alignment with the particular views of the organization or their political philosophy, the ILA deploys a more objective methodology, instead evaluating lawmaker adherence to the limited government principles of the U.S. Constitution. According to the study, the most rampant cases of “fraudulent party identification” occurred in the Texas House of Representatives, with the ILA concluding the legislative chamber is actually under Democratic political party control.
All lawmakers were graded on a 0 to 100 scale, with a rating of 50% and below representing a lawmaker with a Democratic political philosophy and a score above 50% representing a Republican philosophy. In the House, 82 lawmakers had Democratic political philosophies and 66 lawmakers had Republican political philosophies.
In the Texas Senate, the ILA found there was only one case of fraudulent party identification. In total there were 18 senators with Republican political philosophies and 13 senators with Democratic political philosophies.
The ILA website lists over a dozen other state studies that the research institution has performed utilizing the same methodology. The ILA claims that Texas represents one of the worst cases of fraudulent party identification, which the organization also found in Wyoming and Idaho. “Unfortunately for Texans, their state legislature has largely abandoned the principles of limited government,” said Ryan McGowan, CEO of the Institute for Legislative Analysis. “While Texas is often touted as among the ranks of Florida and Tennessee – states generally considered conservative – the data prove this is clearly not the case.”
ILA’s study also broke down Texas lawmaker voting by policy category, providing the percentage of time the legislature adhered to limited government principles. The ILA found that lawmakers were most committed to limited government when it came to policies relating to individual liberties (72% of the time) but largely abandoned limited government when voting on tax and fiscal policy (only 30% of the time) and workforce and labor (27% of the time).
The ILA’s study and dataset largely confirms the findings of another scorecard, the Texas Fiscal Index, produced by Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. Both rating methodologies found that Representatives Tony Tinderholt, Brian Harrison, Briscoe Cain, Steve Toth were among the most conservative in the House. In the Senate, both systems found Bryan Hughes, Mayes Middleton and Bob Hall as the most conservative.
Before heading to the polls, Christian voters should take a close look at this new resource by the ILA and the voting records of their lawmakers. After all, every “Republican” lawmaker may tout on the campaign trail that they are the “most conservative” but in the end it is only their votes that count.
