PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 9, 2019
Salt Lake City, UT – Alliance for a Better Utah released their annual Legislative Scorecard today, this year under a new name: Legislative Progress Report. As a whole, the House and Senate both averaged a C grade.
“The process of scoring votes is always illuminating,” said Lauren Simpson, Better Utah policy director. “We know keeping up with the 45-day session can be exhausting and sometimes impossible for busy Utahns, and we hope our Progress Report will help them understand their legislators better. With our new website, it’s incredibly easy to find out how your legislators voted, even if you don’t know who they are. We believe in making politics as accessible as possible, and we hope this tool will help people across the state get more involved in their communities and in the legislative process.”
This year, lawmakers were graded for their votes on 59 important bills passed by the legislature, organized into four categories: Strong Communities, Equal Rights, Good Government, and Sustainable Future.
“One thing we noticed during this process was that a large number of our legislators did well when it came to the Strong Communities category, but many of the more conservative members did really poorly in Good Government and Sustainable Future categories,” continued Simpson. “Considering our state’s current issues with air quality, water supply, and the ballot initiatives, it certainly raises questions. We hope Utahns will ask their legislators follow-up questions and request explanations. The Legislature serves the public, and the public should hold lawmakers accountable when they fall short on policy issues affecting all of us.”
Along with a new name for the report, Better Utah unveiled a new interactive website, progressreport.betterutah.org, which allows Utahns to search for their legislators’ grades and see a clear breakdown of those grades.
The highest grades in the House and Senate were earned by Representative Patrice Arent and Senator Jani Iwamoto. The lowest grades in the House and Senate were earned by Representative Marc Roberts and Senator Don Ipson. Roberts was the only legislator to earn an overall F grade.
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Alliance for a Better Utah is