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Rank My Rep is a grassroots voter tool designed to help you understand the voting record and political ideology of your state legislators. We have compiled data from both left-leaning and right-leaning organizations across the state and consolidated this information into an easy-to-understand format. It is meant to serve as a one-stop shop for reviewing legislative scorecards from political organizations across Utah.
Across Utah there are multiple political groups with varying missions that track the bills proposed on Utah’s Capitol Hill. For example, Utah Sierra Club focuses on “[solving] the climate crisis in a way that is fair and equitable” while the Libertas Institute ranks legislators “based on how well they voted in accordance with individual liberty, private property, and free enterprise.” There are organizations for tax policy, education, abortion, conservative and liberal beliefs, and more.
Each year these groups will select a number of bills and rank legislators according to how closely they vote in relation to the organization’s mission. These scorecards can range anywhere from a handful of bills to two dozen or more. Every year legislators vote on hundreds of bills reflecting a wide array of consensus, controversy, complexity, partisanship and more. In recent years each session has more than 1,000 bills proposed! A legislative scorecard is an easy way for the average citizen to keep track of what the state legislature is doing.
Simply put, your political ideology is your personal political views. Your ideology is made up of your principles, ideals, beliefs, experiences and more. Your ideology can be influenced by your family, social groups, economic self interest and even your gender. Based on those influences you have likely affiliated with a political party. Conservatives tend to register as Republican and Liberals tend to register as Democrat.
How do you know if you are Conservative or Liberal? According to the Khan Academy,
“Conservatives tend to believe that government should be small, operating mainly at the state or local level. They favor minimal government interference in the economy and prefer private sector-based solutions to problems. Conservatives are said to fall on the “right wing” of the axis of political belief and are typically associated with the Republican Party.” On the other side, “modern-day liberals tend to believe that government should intervene in the economy and provide a broad range of social services to ensure well-being and equality across society. Liberals usually believe that the government should not regulate private sexual or social behaviors. They are said to fall on the “left wing” of the axis of political beliefs and are typically associated with the Democrat Party.”
For a deeper dive on political ideology, you can watch Political Ideology: Crash Course Government and Politics on YouTube that is produced in association with PBS Digital Studios.
Our team has spent countless hours gathering and organizing data to be able to present it in an easy-to-digest format. We have cited more than a dozen different organizations and compiled more nearly 90 individual legislative scorecards spanning almost a decade. This revolutionary voter tool will provide you a big-picture viewpoint on how your state legislators are voting. Our hope is that this website will serve as an easy way to source bills deemed important by some of the leading and most active political institutions in the state. You will quickly see if you approve or disapprove of how your state legislator is voting on your behalf. After all, that’s the principle behind democracy.
Winston Churchill perhaps said it best:
“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
No system is perfect when attempting to measure the ideology, voting record or determining your approval for your elected representatives. We encourage you to do your own homework, speak with your state legislators and use any other tools available to determine your level of satisfaction. With this understanding, we hope that Rank My Rep will assist you in engaging in our democratic form of government.