One of the constant targets of the politically disgraced Senator Kel Seliger, the sad sack soap opera of the session, has been my friends at Empower Texans. Seliger once authored an op-ed about Empower Texans and its sister group Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, back in 2011, headlined: “Beware of fake fiscal responsibility group lobbyist and his phony Legislative ratings.”
SD31’s Kel Seliger
In that ranting and raving opinion piece published by his friends at the Midland Reporter-Telegram, sad sack Seliger wrote “…fraudulent manipulation of voting records is shameful and needs to be condemned.” And he might be right except that his accusation, aimed only at Texans for Fiscal Responsibility and its founder Michael Quinn Sullivan, never offered any evidence of the group’s legislative scorecard being manipulative or fraudulent.
Sad sack Seliger called TFR’s scorecard “phony” and took issue with votes the group tracks for its scores. His constant refrain throughout the 2011 piece was that the scorecard should be ignored because Sullivan is a lobbyist. Seliger and others use that term because they know it unpopular but they are wrong, Sullivan is a conservative political activist like me and many of you.
The problem with Seliger and many others who continue to charge to that the TFR scorecard is unfair or “phony” is that its legislator rankings line-up session after session very closely to the liberal-to-conservative rankings done by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
If sad sack Seliger, or any other legislator, is going to deem a legislative scorecard fraudulent, he might want to pick one that doesn’t so well align with the most respected non-partisan academic study each session.
Sad sack Seliger and claims of “phony” legislative scorecards
SD31’s Kel Seliger
In that ranting and raving opinion piece published by his friends at the Midland Reporter-Telegram, sad sack Seliger wrote “…fraudulent manipulation of voting records is shameful and needs to be condemned.” And he might be right except that his accusation, aimed only at Texans for Fiscal Responsibility and its founder Michael Quinn Sullivan, never offered any evidence of the group’s legislative scorecard being manipulative or fraudulent.
Sad sack Seliger called TFR’s scorecard “phony” and took issue with votes the group tracks for its scores. His constant refrain throughout the 2011 piece was that the scorecard should be ignored because Sullivan is a lobbyist. Seliger and others use that term because they know it unpopular but they are wrong, Sullivan is a conservative political activist like me and many of you.
If sad sack Seliger, or any other legislator, is going to deem a legislative scorecard fraudulent, he might want to pick one that doesn’t so well align with the most respected non-partisan academic study each session.