The Arlington contingent to the General Assembly, in news that will shock nobody, scored relatively low on the new ranking from a conservative group.
But of the seven, only one ranked low enough to be included in the group’s “Coalition of the Radical Left” grouping.
That would be Del. Patrick Hope, whose score of 10 out of 100 made him one of 10 members of the House of Delegates – all Democrats – to score 10 points or less, based on votes taken in the 2022 legislative session.
The Center for Legislative Accountability, an effort of the American Conservative Union Foundation and CPAC Foundation, each year ranks about 8,000 federal and state lawmakers, based on their votes on matters important to the organization.
Hope’s score of 10 was down three points from 2021. And other members of the Arlington delegation in the House of Delegates also scored low: Del. Alfonso Lopez clocked in at 14, up one from 2021; Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker scored 16 in her first year in office; and Del. Rip Sullivan garnered 18, up three points from a year before.
Overall, the 2022 ranking of the General Assembly was 47.71, up from 44.77 a year before and taking Virginia past Alaska to stand at 30th highest on the state-by-state conservative-o-meter.
During the year, “the voting of lawmakers from both political parties [was] trending more moderate,” the conservative group said, perhaps because the new split in power (Republicans running the House of Delegates and governorship, Democrats retaining control of the state Senate) led to more compromise.
The cumulative conservative ranking of Republicans in the General Assembly dipped from 80 percent in 2021 to 73 percent in 2022, while on the Democratic side it rose from 15 percent to 22.5 percent. The shift was most pronounced among GOP members in the Senate, with not a single member tallying more than 80 percent on the scorecard.
In the Senate, a scant 9 points separated the lowest ranked Republican member, Sen. Emmitt Hanger at 49, from the highest ranked Democrat, Sen. Lynwood Lewis at 40. Among the Arlington delegation, Democrats Adam Ebbin scored 28, up 12 points from a year before, with Sen. Janet Howell scoring 24, up five, and Sen. Barbara Favola taking home a score of 23, up 11.
On the House side, it was different, with 18 of 52 Republicans winning awards for scoring more than 80, led by Del. Nick Freitas’s 100-percent ranking.
Lowest on the ranking was Democratic Del. Candi Mundon King, at 7 percent.
For the full list, see the Website at www.conservative.org.
