Tag: Politics

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Politics Politics Feature

Three on a Match

Activist Jerred Price (right) conducted a monster fundraiser at IBIS restaurant last week, and numerous supporters showed up for the event, which was broken up into a meet-and-greet and a concert, in which Price delivered his patented tribute to Elton John. With Price here are Thurston Smith (left) and Regina Morrison Newman (center). (Photo: Courtesy Jerred Price)

Although the Memphis city election of 2023 won’t take place until October, candidates are already fully extended in an effort to get their campaigns (and especially their fundraising needs) established and in order. This has been especially the case regarding the race for mayor, but it is evident in selected council races as well.

One of those races is the one for Super District 8, Position 3, which the term-limited Martavius Jones, currently the council chairman, is scheduled to vacate at year’s end. The District 8 position is one of the six at-large districts permitted by a judicial consent decree dating from the 1990s. In essence, a line was drawn bisecting the city, dividing Super District 8, a majority-Black district, from Super District 9, a majority-white area.

Each of the super districts has three positions, and there are six Super District seats altogether. Unlike the case of the seven smaller regular districts, runoffs are not permitted for the Super District races. They are winner-take-all.

Three candidacies are already fully launched for Super District 8, Position 3. The candidates are shown here.

Business consultant and community activist Brian Harris (center, with tie) hosted a campaign event for fellow Overton High School alumni (classes of 1995-1999) last Sunday at Chef Tam’s Underground Cafe on Union Avenue. (Photo: Jackson Baker)
FedEx executive and former City Councilman Berlin Boyd (here in a vintage photo with erstwhile council colleague Bill Boyd) is seeking a return to the council, where he served as a representative from District 7 from 2011 until his defeat by current Councilwoman Michalyn Easter-Thomas in 2019. (Photo: Jackson Baker)
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Politics Politics Feature

Giving It Another Try

Photo: Juan Moyano | Dreamstime.com

One of the best-known lines in American literature was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who famously opined, “There are no second acts in American lives.”

Well, there are. And one of those lives belongs to former City Councilman Philip Spinosa, who — after a stint with the Chairman’s Circle of the Greater Memphis Chamber and another spell with Prestigious Logistics, a company he founded — intends to run again for the council, presumably in District 5.

As a council member representing District 9-2 from 2015 to 2019, Spinosa concerned himself with issues of economic growth and crime and sponsored such legislation as the Neighborhood Sentinel Program, which established surveillance cameras in various neighborhoods and proved so crucial in the ongoing case involving the death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of a police unit.

In addition to his prior service, Spinosa has the kind of economic connections that would ensure more than adequate financing for his campaign — a fact which will not be lost on potential opponents, who at the moment include well-known activist Meggan Wurzburg Kiel and restaurateur Nick Scott. Others known to be considering a race in District 5 include Anna Vergos Blair, daughter of former councilman and restaurateur John Vergos, and activist/entrepreneur John Marek.

Marek, who is also considering a race for Position 1 in Super-District 9, professes exasperation with the city council’s continuing delay in determining district lines for the forthcoming city election. Some of that hesitation apparently has to do with the view of some members that a 1990s judicial consent decree requires a charter amendment for certain outcomes, including one calling for single-member districts exclusively.

(At present, seven council positions are elected by a single district, and another six are elected in Memphis’ two “super districts,” each comprising approximately half the city’s population. Runoffs are permitted in the single districts, but not in the super districts.)

Two other former council members are apparently going to attempt returns to the city’s legislative body. Berlin Boyd, who served in District 7 and lost a runoff in 2019 to current seat-holder Michalyn Easter-Thomas, is considering a run for the Super District 8-3 seat being vacated by the term-limited Martavius Jones. And Scott McCormick, who represented Super District 9-1 in the first decade of this century, contemplates a race for District 2, now represented by mayoral contender Frank Colvett.

• Developer Chance Carlisle, whose brother Chase represents Council District 9-1, had strongly considered a race for mayor before deciding against it, but he still intends to have a major influence on public policy. His instrument for doing so will be via the medium of a soon-to-be-created political action committee (PAC).

Still to be named, the PAC will have a strong pro-business slant, said Carlisle, who recently was at loggerheads with city government over Mayor Jim Strickland’s reluctance to support further public financing for a proposed grand hotel on the riverfront.

The new PAC will support candidates in this year’s city election and will avoid any kind of partisan inflection, said Carlisle, who acknowledged that the recent announcement for mayor by Councilman Colvett, a well-known Republican, was a factor in his own decision not to run for mayor. That, plus another candidacy by former Mayor Willie Herenton, also recently announced, had the effect of creating possible cleavages in the electorate, said Carlisle.

“This election shouldn’t be about either political party or race,” said Carlisle, who stressed that affordable housing and better mass transit were two of the city’s most important unmet needs.

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Politics Politics Feature

On Banquets and Bandwagons

Among those attending the GOP’s annual dinner were (l to r) keynote speaker Lee Zeldin of New York, Mindy Fischer, Congressman David Kustoff, Terry Fischer, and state Senator Brent Taylor. (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Here’s one for the riddle-me-this types: Why is it, at a time when the demographics of Memphis and Shelby County are demonstrably and overwhelmingly Democratic, that local Republicans are by far the more successful of the two parties in turning out crowds for their partisan events?

A case in point was the GOP’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner, held last Saturday night at the East Memphis Hilton. As is generally the case with this event, regardless of venue, the ballroom was filled to capacity, every table fully stocked, every seat taken and paid for. A veritable sea of people from wall to wall.

So is it ever at Lincoln Day, and the attendees normally include an impressive number of non-Republicans — especially among nonpartisan public officials, judges, Memphis city officials, and the like.

There may have been a bit of fall-off among such attendees this year. Among declared Memphis mayoral candidates, there were only Sheriff Floyd Bonner, Memphis City Councilman Frank Colvett, and former County Commissioner James Harvey; the latter two are self-described Republicans, while Bonner, a Democrat, not only ran with his party’s nomination in last year’s county election, but also had the formal support of the Republican Party, which did not field a candidate of its own.

Assorted judges were also on hand at Saturday night’s GOP event, though perhaps fewer than usual, inasmuch as the members of the Shelby judiciary were elected en masse last year to brand-new eight-year terms, and their need to see and be seen is arguably not as great this year as perhaps it would be closer to re-election time.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, who still identifies as a Democrat, is a frequent attendee at Lincoln Day, though he skipped this year.

The point remains that the Republicans’ annual local banquet customarily attracts partisan crossovers, a phenomenon that does not exist on the other side of the partisan scale. Unfortunately, there is no way to make effective comparisons. The fact is, the Shelby County Democratic Party has had very few party-sponsored dinner gatherings as such in recent years, opting instead for “roast” affairs featuring comedy acts or for after-hours parties in bistros with bands.

Changes in political fashion over the years have altered the nomenclature of what has sporadically been an equivalent of sorts to the Republicans’ Lincoln Day banquet. What now goes by the name of Kennedy-Obama Dinner has happened only occasionally in recent years. Both local parties suspended their party banquets for at least a year during the pandemic, but the Republicans have resumed, and the Democrats haven’t.

As it happens, the Shelby County Democrats will be voting next month for new officers and a new party assembly. One of the county’s best-known local Democrats is Dave Cambron, president of the Germantown Democrats, a well-organized body that holds frequent and well-attended meetings, often on general-interest subjects, and welcomes guests.

“It’s time for us to start back holding regular annual party banquets,” says Cambron. “Why not? We are the majority party, and we need to keep our doors open.”

For the record, by the way, the keynote speaker at this year’s Lincoln Day banquet was former Congressman Lee Zeldin of New York, who made a spirited race for governor in 2022 and boasted Tuesday night that he had helped elect several Republicans to Congress from his state. He didn’t mention it, but one of them was named George Santos.

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Politics Politics Feature

Surprise, Surprise!

Willie Herenton in the 2019 mayoral race (Photo: Jackson Baker)

The January 15th financial disclosures revealed four declared mayoral candidates as “cash on hand” leaders — Downtown Memphis Commission president/CEO Paul Young, Sheriff Floyd Bonner, businessman J.W. Gibson, and NAACP head and former County Commissioner Van Turner.

With months to go before petitions can even be drawn, though, surprise news last week from two other individuals in the ever-increasing list of mayoral prospects indicated the fluidity of things.

Frank Colvett: When he announced for mayor last week, the city councilman, a white Republican, surprised a lot of people, who wondered how he — as a member of both a racial minority and a political minority — stood a chance of victory. Asked about that kind of skepticism, Colvett cited what he said was his proven record as a conciliator on the council, where he served a recent term as chairman.

“White, Black, Republican, Democrat, none of that matters. This is a nonpartisan race and a nonpartisan job, I intend to represent all the people,” said Colvett, with an unexceptionable answer that will seem so much pure rhetoric to the aforesaid skeptics. He said he intends to focus on the issues — crime, especially — and to demand that each of his opponents “produce a plan,” a detailed blueprint, with no evasions or mere platitudes.

Whatever his own prospects, Colvett has already had an effect on the race. Merely by announcing, he has probably forestalled prospects of a candidacy by lawyer John Bobango or council colleague Chase Carlisle or Carlisle’s developer brother Chance, all of whom had been rumored to be interested in running but who would be dependent in the beginning on the same GOP base as Colvett.

And, however fractional it might be, Colvett’s appeal to that base will drain some support from candidates Bonner and Young, each of whom has been making inroads among conservatives.

Colvett insists he is in the race to stay and won’t get out to accommodate anybody else, nor will he consider brokering a large-campaign exit by himself to affect the ultimate outcome.

Willie Herenton: The former mayor, who officially entered the race on Monday, had created a considerable stir last week among those observers paying attention with a heavily stylized online post that repeated variations of the sentence “Get the hell out of my office!” That was a reminder, the post elaborated, of Herenton’s clash with an impertinent reporter during his 18-year mayoral tenure. Significantly, the post ended with two panels which, together, formed the slogan “Campaign Coming Soon … 2023.”

Herenton lost his last two races for elective office — a somewhat feckless race for Congress in 2010 and a sixth race for mayor in 2019. In the loss to Jim Strickland in the latter race, a three-way affair, Herenton received some 30 percent of the total vote and finished second. Conceding to Strickland on election night, he referred to the 2019 race as being “my last,” though his recent post certainly suggests a change of mind.

Now that he is competing again, his impact could be considerable. Though he never gained traction in his 2010 congressional try, in the 2019 mayoral race he received the endorsement of several public-employee unions and polled well among African-American voters, many of whom still see in Herenton the heroic change-maker who in 1991 had become Memphis’ first elected Black mayor.

As an active candidate Herenton will almost certainly attract votes — perhaps a considerable number — which might ordinarily go to one of the several African-American Democrats now contending. And he remains controversial enough among conservatives — both white and, to some degree, Black — to coalesce in a backlash vote for a specific candidate or two among the other contenders.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Herenton for Mayor … Again?

The Memphis Mayor’s race already has a fair number of announced candidates, some well known, some not. But it may be about to attract a candidate who is renowned to many Memphians and deeply controversial to others.

This would be none other than Willie Herenton, who has run for Mayor six times, winning five of those contests in the period 1991 to 2007 and losing one in 2019. Herenton’s first victory, in 1991, made him the first elected Black chief executive in the city’s history.

On Tuesday of this week the former Mayor dropped a video post on his Facebook page that pretty directly suggests he intends one more run for the mayoralty, this year

The post — a heavily stylized mix of sound and images — begins with an announcer’s voice saying, “This is the one you’ve been waiting for,” and continues with repeated reminders of a time, during Herenton’s mayoral tenure, when he ordered an impetuous reporter out of his work space, saying, in a refrain that is visually noted several times and recapitulated directly once from an old audio, “Get the hell out of my office!” 

The video ends with panels (here combined) that say, in succession, “Campaign Coming Soon, and “2023.”

Recently we noted in this space that Herenton has imminent plans to publish a political and personal memoir entitled From the Bottom. Asked this week, in an exchange of texts, about the book and about his possible campaign plans, he responded, “Working hard to meet some deadlines for the book,” and he promised to reach out soon so “we can talk politics.”

See the video here.

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Politics Politics Feature

R.I.P. Tyre Nichols: The Mayoral Candidates React

Memorial for Tyre Nichols (Photo: Van Turner)

The tragic death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of out-of-control Memphis police has touched the hearts and minds of Memphians and vast numbers of people, for that matter, around the world. How have the announced candidates for Memphis mayor reacted?

Voluminously, it would seem — in public appearances, on social media, and elsewhere. Here is a brief sampling of what they have said.

Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner: “My heartfelt condolences are expressed to the family and friends of Tyre Nichols. I am sad and angry about his tragic death.

“I am a second-generation law enforcement officer, and I am disgusted by what we all saw captured on video. This horrible incident tarnishes the badge that I wear, and many other good officers wear every day. I will do everything in my power to prevent another parent from having to bury their child in such a senseless and tragic way.”

Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young: “On behalf of our family, I pause today and become fully present with my deepest sympathy and condolences for the family and all who are mourning the tragic loss of Tyre Nichols — a young man with much promise who is gone too soon. Let’s keep the Nichols family in prayer as they enter this uncharted territory.”

Businessman J.W. Gibson: “The police officers responsible for the senseless and fatal beating of Tyre Nichols have been appropriately charged with second-degree murder. … As a lifelong Memphian, I know that the actions of those few [are] absolutely not a reflection of the dedication, heart, or humanity of the overwhelming majority of the men and women of the Memphis Police Department. As these officers await their days in court, we must come together as a community.”

School Board chair Michelle McKissack: “My heart breaks for Tyre’s sweet mother, family, and son. Together, we must honor his life and demand systemic change so this never happens again.”

State House Democratic Leader Karen Camper: “Like so many of my fellow Memphians I watched with horror as five Memphis police officers savagely beat Tyre Nichols. And I am one of the thousands of Memphians and people around the nation and the world who have followed this tragic event who are offering their sincere condolences to the Nichols family. This act of violence and abuse of power has no place in our city nor in our police department.”

Former County Commissioner and NAACP President Van Turner: “We appreciate the city’s quick action and transparency thus far in the case of Tyre Nichols as more officers and first responders are brought to justice. Tyre’s mother has called for a bill named after her son which would seek to emphasize a duty to intervene and render aid which was not done for her son. We must stand with her in this fight for justice and reform. … [W]e must disrupt the culture which allows this to happen. We must not forget Tyre’s death and the way that he died, and as mayor of Memphis, I vow to not allow Tyre Nichols’ death be in vain.”

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Politics Politics Feature

Dates Certain

Rick White (Photo: Courtesy Rick White)

From the intensity of both behind-the-scenes action and up-front newsmaking, it would almost seem that the 2023 city election — especially the mayoral-race component of it — is a matter of immediate import.

The fact is, however, that for all the present abundance of action, we are still four months from the first day that candidate petitions can be picked up at the Election Commission. That day will be Monday, May 22nd. The next key date in the city election process will be a filing deadline of Thursday, July 20th, at noon. Early voting will begin on Friday, September 15th, and election day will be Thursday, October 5th. Should a runoff be necessary in a district race for city council, that date will be Thursday, November 16th.

A key date of sorts just passed last week: The January 15th cutoff for financial receipts, which must be disclosed by the January 31st deadline. Sometime next week, as the results of this first round of disclosures get known, the actual pecking order of mayoral candidates should become clearer.

Early leaders in the money race are thought to be Sheriff Floyd Bonner and Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young, with former County Commissioner and NAACP head Van Turner also doing well.

• Meanwhile, in the wake of reports that former City Councilman John Bobango is considering running for mayor, another white candidate is letting his interest in a mayoral race be known. This is Rick White, a realtor and relative unknown, who says he intends to devote much of his time to the message that the citizens of Memphis are the responsible parties in any potential strategy for resolving the city’s crime issue.

In what sounds like a paradoxical sentiment, the mayoral aspirant says, “Whoever is mayor isn’t nearly as important as telling the citizens that it is they, and not an official, who can do something about crime.” Conveying that message would be an important element in his campaign should he run, White said.

• Add the name of Frankie Dakin, aide to Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, to the list of those thinking of running for the key District 5 City Council seat.

• Though the outcome of Tuesday’s special Democratic primary in state House District 86 could not have been known by the deadline (Tuesday noon, roughly) for this week’s print edition, it will have been posted subsequently in the Flyer in the form of an online article.

Like us, the Shelby County Commission was up against a deadline on the matter. As commission chairman Mickell Lowery notified members at the tail end of Monday’s regular commission meeting, January 31st is the final date for submitting legislation in the General Assembly; whereas, the commission’s next regularly scheduled meeting would not come until February 6th.

Whoever ends up representing District 86 in the state House should have the opportunity to formally file bills by the appointed General Assembly deadline, Lowery said.

Accordingly, the chairman announced a special called meeting of the commission on Wednesday of this week, for the express purpose of making a formal appointment of the top vote-getter as the state representative-elect. As Lowery noted, Tuesday’s leader would be eligible for that status because there were no Republican primary entrants for the position, making the Democratic primary winner the de facto winner of the seat and a proposed March 14th general election date moot.

Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. raised the issue that, depending on how close the election turned out to be, it might be difficult to designate a certifiable victor as soon as Wednesday. Nevertheless, the special called meeting date stands.

The District 86 seat was filled for 26 years by the late Barbara Cooper, who died last October after winning the Democratic primary for the seat in August. This week’s special election to name a successor was called after Cooper’s formal — and posthumous — reelection in November.

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Politics Politics Feature

And From the GOP…

John Bobango (Photo: Courtesy Farris Bobango)

Some weeks ago in a year-end article in the Flyer we speculated on the unlikelihood of there being a white Republican candidate for Memphis mayor. At the time a few names in that category had been floated — those of former Sheriff and County Mayor Mark Luttrell and City Councilman Frank Colvett prominent among them.

As of this writing, there is little reason to believe that either one of those personages will become a candidate, but a new name has surfaced — that of John Bobango, who served a term on the Memphis City Council and is well-known as a lawyer of some eminence and as a donor and broker of numerous successful political campaigns on the part of others.

Bobango is known to have been making numerous phone calls of late, notifying friends and potential supporters of his potential availability to make a mayoral race. And, given his own past and current immersion in the political sphere, he has to be taken seriously as a possible entrant.

Should he become a candidate, Bobango’s name would not be as fresh with Memphis voters as either of the aforementioned names. His term of active political service ended in 2001; whereas, Luttrell’s term as county mayor was as recent as 2018, and Colvett is still serving on the council, having served a term as its chair.

What Bobango has in spades is financial resourcefulness, stemming from his own hugely successful career as a lawyer and investor, and from his presumed high potential to raise additional money from his extensive network of associates.

What he lacks, like all other potential white candidates, is membership in the city’s demographic majority. In theory, American politics is color-blind. In actuality, it is not, given the clear tendency of voters, in Memphis as elsewhere, to vote within the confines of their own ethnic connections.

The chances of any white mayoral candidate would be problematic. A white Republican like Bobango would face another disadvantage, that of belonging to a political party that clearly has minority status locally.

It is obviously meaningful that, in last year’s Shelby County election, Democrats prevailed so totally that not a single Republican was able to win a countywide race. And the Democratic base of Memphis is proportionally even larger — a fact that is relevant even in what will be a technically nonpartisan city election.

To be sure, a white candidate in this year’s mayoral race would be running against several African-American candidates and in theory would benefit from a voter-base split among them. The current incumbent mayor, Jim Strickland, undoubtedly benefited from such a split in his initial 2015 victory, and, to go with his identity as a Democrat, he had the kind of support from the city’s Republican voters that Bobango would hope to have.

But Strickland, at the time, was an active office-holder on the city council, and his mayoral ambitions had been known for years. Bobango’s active service in office was a generation ago.

But he was a factor in the city’s politics then, and, should he run, it would be instructive to see what he can make of the long-odds challenge that would confront him.

• Meanwhile, stop the presses! Another Republican, this one an African American, is apparently ready to join a mayoral field that is already rife with entries. This would be former County Commissioner James Harvey, who changed party affiliations some years back and has long meditated on a mayoral race, whether of the county or the city kind.

Harvey has sent out a notice under the letterhead “James Harvey – Mayor 2023” announcing a “Call to Action Campaign Meeting” scheduled for Friday evening of this week at the Southwind country club.

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Politics Politics Feature

Movers, Shakers, and Wannabes

Justin Pearson (Photo: Justin J. Pearson | Facebook)

Gone from Memphis on a new professional mission that is an advance itself which may lead to more is Liz Rincon, who is heading to Chicago to become the new director of development for the Chicago Philharmonic.

Liz Rincon with Chooch Pickard at her going-away party

Rincon, a longtime activist, has been the proprietor of the Rincon Strategy Firm for, lo, these several years in Memphis and has shepherded many a candidate in a city and county election. She is well-known as an expert in “cutting turf,” i.e, mapping out and organizing neighborhood door-to-door actions, and for her efforts in assisting the city of Memphis in encouraging residents of impoverished areas to accept Covid vaccinations.

• John Marek, the activist and cannabis entrepreneur who ran for the city council’s 5th District seat four years ago, losing to current incumbent Worth Morgan, may try it again, depending on the final shape of the council districts (the bluer the better, from the point of view of Democrat Marek). Alternatively, he is considering a challenge to incumbent Chase Carlisle for the Super District 9-1 seat.

Likely candidates for the 5th so far include Nick Scott, owner of the Alchemy restaurant at Cooper-Young, and Meggan Wurzburg Kiel, an organizer at MICAH (Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope) and former director of support for Soulsville Charter School.

• Greg Blumenthal, who long considered being a candidate for the 5th District council seat, has opted instead to join two other activists, John Carroll and George Boyington, in forming a new political consultancy. The trio is assisting Memphis mayoral candidate Van Turner (who is also helped by the firm run by Matt Kuhn and Mike Lipe), as well as District 86 state House candidate Justin Pearson.

• Justin Pearson,who came to fame as the leader of the successful 2021 campaign against a proposed oil pipeline to be routed through South Memphis, is running with the same vigor for the District 86 seat which was made vacant by the death in November of 93-year-old Barbara Cooper.

Anyone who remembers Pearson’s stewardship of the successful battle against the pipeline knows that he has a way with campaigns and a knack for dramatizing issues. His task of late is more personal. He is attempting to convince the voters of District 86 to vote him in as Cooper’s successor rather than any of several opponents. This past weekend, Pearson turned his birthday party into a fair-sized rally. He has door knockers aplenty at work, has collected a pile of endorsements, and is said to be ready to send out mailers.

As no doubt are others. Nine other candidates are competing, several with good chances, especially considering that, as in the case of any other special-education vote, the turnout is likely to be low. Among the contenders: Tanya Cooper, Barbara Cooper’s daughter and an educator in her own right; Julian Bolton, a longtime member of the Shelby County Commission and other public endeavors who is well remembered among the somewhat elderly voters who regularly vote in this district; Will Richardson, who ran up a decent vote in his August primary challenge to Rep. Cooper; Rome Withers, son of the well-remembered photographer Ernest Withers; Dominique Frost, employee of Shelby County government and an insurance entrepreneur; and Clifford Lewis, son of a well-known activist.

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CLA Report: Tennessee Ties For Second Most-Conservative State House

State Capitol (Credit: Tennessee State Government)

Tennessee and Indiana tied for the second most-conservative group of state lawmakers in 2021 during a “new level of political polarization,” according to the Center for Legislative Accountability (CLA), a conservative think tank. 

The group released findings of a new study last month that reviewed votes from all 7,400 of the country’s state lawmakers from all 50 states. This covered more than 265,000 votes on about 3,500 bills introduced in state legislatures.  

In 2021, Tennessee’s GOP-controlled House and Senate was just barely less conservative than top-ranking Alabama. Tennessee’s lawmakers voted “with the conservative position” (as CLA puts it) 73 percent of the time. Alabama topped the state by one percentage point with 74 percent. 

The CLA tracked dozens of bills in the Nashville Capitol that year, everything from bills regulating art therapists and homemade food to teaching Critical Race Theory and carrying guns without a permit. 

The CLA’s highest (most conservative) score went to Sen. Paul Bailey (R-Sparta) who voted by CLA’s definition of conservative 87 percent of the time. Former Sen. Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown), awaiting sentencing after a conviction on election fraud charges, scored 85 percent. The lowest-ranking lawmaker (19 percent) in 2021 was Sen. Katrina Robinson (D-Memphis) who lost her seat after wire-fraud convictions in 2021. 

Tennessee lawmakers score well on the issues of elections, property rights, education, law, and personal liberty. Their weakest issues are energy and environment and taxes, budget, and spending. 

While the state tied for second in 2021, it ranks at the top of the list for all of the years CLA has been collecting this data. 

Nationally, the CLA report found the nation’s 3,906 Republican state lawmakers voted conservatively nearly 81 percent of the time, up from 76 percent in 2021. The nation’s 3,223 Democratic state lawmakers voted conservatively about 16 percent in 2021, down from nearly 19 percent in 2020.     

“The 64.99 percentage point divide between the two political parties marks the highest level of political polarization since the CLA became the first and only organization to track such data in 2015,” reads the CLA report. 

The CLA report said the least conservative state houses can be found in Massachusetts, Hawaii, Rhode Island, California, and Maryland.  

The CLA is a project of CPAC Foundation and the American Conservative Union Foundation.