The time for accountability
Continuing a fifteen-year tradition.
To date I have run this Substack as something that’s not really state-centered but more issue-based. However, I’m making an exception on this post to announce that my latest (2021-22) edition of the Delaware Accountability Project was put up yesterday on monoblogue. At some point I’m going to figure out how to bring that file over here, or put it on Scribd or something, but for the moment this link will have to suffice.
If you’ll bear with me, I’m going to explain why I began the Accountability Project and how it can be relevant to you.
Through 2006, there was a person who graded the Maryland General Assembly on how they voted from a conservative perspective. It was a useful tool to compare and contrast the voting records of the Republicans and Democrats and those legislators in your district or region.
If my memory serves, the gentleman who did the Maryland Accountability Project left the state for a job and with it left the project after the 2006 session. Because Maryland is a somewhat unique state in how they select legislators (all members, House and Senate, face voters at the same time every four years, at the same time a governor is elected) I decided to pick up the baton with an eye on influencing the election in 2010. So when I began the monoblogue Accountability Project in 2008, I started it by releasing three separate reports: 2007 regular session, 2007 Special Session, and 2008 regular session. It was quite a bit of work, but it was good practice, too: I got pretty good at the lengthy process of selecting a number of votes and compiling the tally sheets. (And these were long tallies, as there are 188 legislators in Maryland.) The eventual idea was to have a whole term full of votes to judge the legislators by.
Once the TEA Party got underway, I finally found my audience. I remember the local Americans for Prosperity group going out and printing a couple dozen copies of the mAP for distribution at a meeting. (While I have claimed a copyright since I began, I make the PDF file available in return for credit if cited.)
I did the Maryland version through 2018, stopping because I knew I was moving to Delaware. I picked up the Delaware General Assembly in 2016 once I began working in Delaware at a previous job and have kept it up since, with this 2021-22 version being the fourth such version.
One thing I have discovered in my political activism, though, is that there are a number of other entities which do something similar to my Accountability Project. But the problem with them is that they generally focus on one topic, for good or bad. (Some examples are 2A and environmental groups.) Over the years I’ve tried to focus on a broad variety of issues, but sometimes the agenda of the session is such that I couldn’t help but have a plethora of tax or gun bills, as examples.
The great thing about Delaware’s legislature is that they do two-year sessions with just 62 legislators. This year I set a record with fifty different votes because it was a very busy two-year session, but totaling up 3,000 votes is nothing compared to nearly 5,000 for a single Maryland session.
This is just a tool in evaluating the incumbent candidate, but it’s a useful one. For example, while my state House member is unopposed for yet another election, my state Senator is in a three-way race with a member of Non-Partisan Delaware and a Libertarian. (No Democrat filed in the race.) I can look and see that he had an 80% record of conservative correct votes this session and a lifetime score of 65, which is one of the better records in Delaware - ranking 3rd of the seven Republican state senators. The question then becomes whether I believe either candidate would have a better voting record, and I doubt it (although the Libertarian may come pretty close.)
Perhaps there’s someone in your state toiling away at something similar as a labor of love. If he (or she) is like me, all they’re looking for is a better-informed electorate because a better-informed electorate is more likely one that will vote in a conservative, limited-government manner.