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Ideology scores for the Utah House of Representatives, 2008

Political scientists have developed advanced algorithms that can calculate each legislator's ideology score based on his or her legislative voting record. Here I use the W-NOMINATE method (it's an acronym, hence the caps). Important caveats:

  1. Ideology scores have no scale. There is not a number that means "liberal" or "conservative." Scores have only relative meaning, so that a lower score indicates a more liberal voting record than a higher score.
  2. Scores are only comparable within a single chamber, within a single year. You cannot compare House scores to Senate scores, and you cannot compare 2018 scores to 2019 scores. (That's because of caveat #1: Scores have no scale.)
  3. Scores reflect what comes to the floor. In a supermajority Republican Legislature, most fights are between moderate Republicans and conservative Republicans, not between Republicans and Democrats. Thus, scores calculated from votes in the Utah Legislature will reveal more daylight among Republicans than among Democrats.
  4. Zero does not mean "moderate," it just means "the middle of this group of legislators." See the preceding point. Also, "moderate" Utah Republican legislators are usually pretty conservative on a national scale.
  5. Scores close to 100 are not "most loyal Republicans." Even calling these "most conservative" would be very misleading, since it implies these legislators come closest to some conservative standard. Utah is a very conservative state, and a legislator near the middle of this particular Republican pack is likewise very conservative. Scores near 100 indicate Republicans at the extreme end of the scale, who are to the right of even most Republicans, and perhaps well to the right of the Republican party platform.

You can find a thorough discussion of these ideology scores at the Utah data points blog.

The scores below are for 2008 in the Utah House of Representatives. Select a different year here:
House: - 2007 - 2008 - 2009 - 2010 - 2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018 - 2019 - 2020
Senate: - 2007 - 2008 - 2009 - 2010 - 2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018 - 2019 - 2020

Distribution of scores

The plot below summarizes how many legislators fall into each score range. There is one "D" for each Democrat in the given range, and one "R" for each Republican. There are 75 legislators in the Utah House of Representatives.

 -100 to -90 | DDD
-90.1 to -80 | DDDD
-80.1 to -70 | DDDDD
-70.1 to -60 | DDDDDD
-60.1 to -50 | DD
-50.1 to -40 | R
-40.1 to -30 | 
-30.1 to -20 | RRRRR
-20.1 to -10 | RRR
  -10.1 to 0 | RRR
   0.1 to 10 | RRRR
  10.1 to 20 | RRRRRRRRRRRR
  20.1 to 30 | RRRRRRR
  30.1 to 40 | RR
  40.1 to 50 | RRRR
  50.1 to 60 | RRRR
  60.1 to 70 | RRRRRR
  70.1 to 80 | RR
  80.1 to 90 | R
 90.1 to 100 | R

Detailed ideology data

If you use this data in published work, please credit me appropriately.

Legislator Party Chamber Year Ideology score
Chavez-Houck, Rebecca D House 2008 -96.9
Litvack, David D House 2008 -92.6
Johnson, Christine A. D House 2008 -91.3
McGee, Rosalind J. D House 2008 -87.8
Seelig, Jennifer M. D House 2008 -87.3
Biskupski, Jackie D House 2008 -85.4
Wiley, Larry B. D House 2008 -84.7
Hemingway, Lynn N. D House 2008 -77.0
Fisher, Janice M. D House 2008 -75.2
Wheatley, Mark A. D House 2008 -73.6
Riesen, Phil D House 2008 -73.3
Moss, Carol Spackman D House 2008 -72.5
Hendrickson, Neal B. D House 2008 -68.7
Cosgrove, Tim M. D House 2008 -67.6
King, Brad D House 2008 -67.5
Hansen, Neil A. D House 2008 -65.6
Gowans, James R. D House 2008 -64.0
Shurtliff, LaWanna Lou D House 2008 -63.9
Duckworth, Carl W. D House 2008 -55.3
Morgan, Karen W. D House 2008 -51.6
Holdaway, Kory M. R House 2008 -43.4
Menlove, Ronda Rudd R House 2008 -27.7
Allen, Sheryl L. R House 2008 -26.3
McIff, Kay L. R House 2008 -25.1
Mascaro, Steven R. R House 2008 -24.8
Hunsaker, Fred R R House 2008 -22.0
Brown, Melvin R. R House 2008 -18.7
Bowman, DeMar Bud R House 2008 -18.2
Fowlke, Lorie D. R House 2008 -11.3
Dunnigan, James A. R House 2008 -7.8
Ferry, Ben C. R House 2008 -5.9
Neuenschwander, Paul A. R House 2008 -1.8
Bird, Jim R House 2008 0.8
Draxler, Jack R. R House 2008 1.6
Snow, Gordon E. R House 2008 3.7
Hutchings, Eric K. R House 2008 8.6
Froerer, Gage R House 2008 10.8
Dee, Brad L. R House 2008 12.1
Fisher, Julie R House 2008 12.5
Walker, Mark W. R House 2008 13.2
Clark, Stephen D. R House 2008 13.3
Winn, Bradley A. R House 2008 14.8
Ray, Paul R House 2008 15.1
Aagard, Douglas C. R House 2008 15.8
Bigelow, Ron R House 2008 16.4
Webb, R. Curt R House 2008 16.7
Gibson, Kerry W. R House 2008 17.6
Barrus, Roger E. R House 2008 18.9
Urquhart, Stephen H. R House 2008 21.3
Clark, David R House 2008 21.6
Painter, Patrick R House 2008 22.2
Andersen, Sylvia S. R House 2008 22.4
Last, Bradley G. R House 2008 23.9
Kiser, Todd E. R House 2008 25.0
Curtis, Greg J. R House 2008 29.4
Harper, Wayne A. R House 2008 34.9
Garn, Kevin S. R House 2008 36.2
Greenwood, Richard A. R House 2008 40.3
Mathis, John G. R House 2008 40.5
Noel, Michael E. R House 2008 45.4
Hughes, Gregory H. R House 2008 49.2
Lockhart, Rebecca D. R House 2008 52.0
Grover, Keith R House 2008 53.6
Donnelson, Glenn A. R House 2008 56.4
Newbold, Merlynn T. R House 2008 59.6
Sandstrom, Stephen E. R House 2008 61.0
Daw, Bradley M. R House 2008 63.1
Herrod, Christopher N. R House 2008 66.4
Frank, Craig A. R House 2008 66.8
Oda, Curtis R House 2008 67.0
Sumsion, Kenneth W. R House 2008 70.0
Tilton, Aaron R House 2008 72.1
Dougall, John R House 2008 77.6
Wimmer, Carl R House 2008 87.9
Morley, Michael T. R House 2008 90.2