Ideology scores for the Utah House of Representatives, 2017

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 2017 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 - 2021
Senate: - 2007 - 2008 - 2009 - 2010 - 2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018 - 2019 - 2020 - 2021

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 | DDDDDDD
-90.1 to -80 | DD
-80.1 to -70 | DDD
-70.1 to -60 | 
-60.1 to -50 | 
-50.1 to -40 | D
-40.1 to -30 | 
-30.1 to -20 | 
-20.1 to -10 | 
  -10.1 to 0 | 
   0.1 to 10 | RR
  10.1 to 20 | RRRRR
  20.1 to 30 | RRRRRRRRR
  30.1 to 40 | RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
  40.1 to 50 | RRRRRRRRRR
  50.1 to 60 | RRRRRRRRRR
  60.1 to 70 | RRRRR
  70.1 to 80 | RRR
  80.1 to 90 | RRR
 90.1 to 100 | 

Detailed ideology data

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

Legislator	Party	Chamber	Year	Ideology score
Romero, Angela	D	House	2017	-98.7
Chavez-Houck, Rebecca	D	House	2017	-96.2
Briscoe, Joel K.	D	House	2017	-96.0
Hollins, Sandra	D	House	2017	-95.2
Arent, Patrice M.	D	House	2017	-92.0
Kwan, Karen	D	House	2017	-90.7
Weight, Elizabeth	D	House	2017	-90.1
Moss, Carol Spackman	D	House	2017	-82.2
Poulson, Marie H.	D	House	2017	-80.9
Hemingway, Lynn N.	D	House	2017	-79.1
Wheatley, Mark A.	D	House	2017	-76.5
King, Brian S.	D	House	2017	-73.6
Duckworth, Susan	D	House	2017	-45.6
Edwards, Rebecca P.	R	House	2017	7.5
Ward, Raymond P.	R	House	2017	8.4
Owens, Derrin	R	House	2017	14.5
Redd, Edward H.	R	House	2017	15.3
Spendlove, Robert M.	R	House	2017	15.9
Winder, Mike	R	House	2017	16.2
Hall, Craig	R	House	2017	16.6
Potter, Val K.	R	House	2017	21.5
Handy, Stephen G.	R	House	2017	22.0
Miles, Kelly B.	R	House	2017	23.2
Pitcher, Dixon M.	R	House	2017	23.6
Hutchings, Eric K.	R	House	2017	25.5
Watkins, Christine F.	R	House	2017	27.3
Eliason, Steve	R	House	2017	27.3
Christensen, LaVar	R	House	2017	28.1
Perry, Lee B.	R	House	2017	29.0
Chew, Scott H.	R	House	2017	31.3
Webb, R. Curt	R	House	2017	32.4
Cutler, Bruce R.	R	House	2017	33.2
Gardiner, Adam	R	House	2017	33.4
Snow, V. Lowry	R	House	2017	33.5
Sagers, Douglas	R	House	2017	34.4
Ray, Paul	R	House	2017	34.5
Last, Bradley G.	R	House	2017	35.0
Wilson, Brad R.	R	House	2017	35.3
Dunnigan, James A.	R	House	2017	35.4
Albrecht, Carl R.	R	House	2017	36.2
Nelson, Merrill F.	R	House	2017	36.3
Peterson, Jeremy A.	R	House	2017	36.6
Hughes, Gregory H.	R	House	2017	37.5
Hawkes, Timothy D.	R	House	2017	38.2
Westwood, John R.	R	House	2017	40.1
Froerer, Gage	R	House	2017	40.2
Noel, Michael E.	R	House	2017	41.7
Sanpei, Dean	R	House	2017	43.6
Barlow, Stewart	R	House	2017	44.6
Sandall, Scott D.	R	House	2017	45.5
Pulsipher, Susan	R	House	2017	45.7
Brooks, Walt	R	House	2017	46.5
Grover, Keith	R	House	2017	47.5
Schultz, Mike	R	House	2017	49.6
Daw, Bradley M.	R	House	2017	50.9
Kennedy, Michael S.	R	House	2017	52.5
Moss, Jefferson	R	House	2017	52.5
Christofferson, Kay J.	R	House	2017	53.2
McKell, Mike K.	R	House	2017	54.9
Maloy, A. Cory	R	House	2017	56.0
Stratton, Keven J.	R	House	2017	58.1
Peterson, Val L.	R	House	2017	58.7
Stanard, Jon E.	R	House	2017	59.1
Wilde, Logan	R	House	2017	59.4
Quinn, Tim	R	House	2017	61.3
Fawson, Justin L.	R	House	2017	62.0
Gibson, Francis D.	R	House	2017	62.1
Coleman, Kim	R	House	2017	63.6
Thurston, Norman K.	R	House	2017	64.3
Knotwell, John	R	House	2017	75.1
Lisonbee, Karianne	R	House	2017	76.0
Ivory, Ken	R	House	2017	78.7
Greene, Brian M.	R	House	2017	85.8
Roberts, Marc K.	R	House	2017	88.3
McCay, Daniel	R	House	2017	88.5