When you track more than 2,500 individual votes, sometimes you don't catch every special circumstance. That's why we said in our 2019 Texas Legislative Scorecard we are open to adjusting the scores of Texas lawmakers after we published it. Well, the time has come for an update, y'all!
Based on factors we overlooked initially, we are adjusting upwards the scores of three State Representatives and one State Senator. For their work in making HB 3750 (limiting the ability of local democracies to protect water resources) less bad, we adjusted the scores of State Reps. Gina Hinojosa (HD 49 - Austin), Celia Israel (HD 50 - Austin), and Eddie Rodriguez (HD 51 - Austin). For her work in keeping a bad bill from being passed (SB 1021), and for special efforts to make HB 2771 less bad, we also adjusted Sen. Beverly Powell's (SD 10 - Burleson) score. Here are the new scores for these legislators:
- Rep. Gina Hinojosa: 100%
- Rep. Celia Israel: 100%
- Rep. Eddie Rodriguez: 90%
- Sen. Beverly Powell: 72.7%
We also acknowledge that we overlooked the circumstances of Rep. Sarah Davis's seven missed votes. She had to miss votes due to a family health issue. When we were alerted, we reached out to her office to let her know we are open to adjusting her score if she would tell us how she would have voted on the bills she missed. As of publication of his blog, we haven't heard back but we remain committed to adjusting this score.
Congratulations to Reps. Hinojosa and Israel, who join eight other Texas House members with perfect scores of 100!
Check out all the scores, votes, and more on the 2019 Texas Legislative Scorecard page!