American Conservative Union Rates New Jersey Legislators
American Conservative Union, the folks who put on the CPAC conventions and who have since 1971 been rating the conservatism of members of Congress have rated the conservatism of New Jersey’s state legislators.
ACU tracked the votes on 11 pieces of legislation for Assembly members and 9 votes in the Senate. Those who voted the way ACU favored 100% of the time were declared “Defenders of Liberty.” Those who voted with ACU on 80% or more of the bills earned the designation “ACU Conservative.”
Those legsilators who never voted the way ACU favored, most of the Democrats, earned the designation “True Liberals of the Garden State.”
Some of the results in the Monmouth County delegation, Districts 11, 12, 13 and 30, are surprising. At least they are to me.
If you asked me to predict who among the Monmouth County delegation would have earned a 100% conservative, “Defender of Liberty” designation I would have guessed only 11th District Assemblywoman Caroline Cassagrande. I would have guessed wrong. Cassagrande didn’t even make the 80% “ACU Conservative” cut. She voted the ACU way 8 of 11 times for a 73% rating. The 3 votes Cassagrande cast that did not meet ACU approval were for 1) for legislation that requires businesses to post notices that employees have the right to be free from gender inequality, 2) for legislation that would ban treating waste water from fracking and 3) a bill that provided tax credits for electric car charging stations.
Posted: December 19th, 2012 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Monmouth County, Monmouth GOP, NJ State Legislature | Tags: ACU, American Conservative Union, Amy Handlin, Caroline Cassagrande, CPAC, Dave Rible, Declan O'Scanlon, Jennifer Beck, Joe Kyrillos, Mary Pat Angelini, Rob Clifton, Robert Singer, Ronald Dancer, Sam Thompson, Sean Kean | 3 Comments »