Arkansas Watch: Best and Worst State Legislators

Arkansas Watch has sought input from a panel of activists from around the state to rate the ten best and ten worst legislators. Since some of these activists work with legislators, I agreed to keep their identities secret. We will release the results for the 10 best legislators tomorrow, on the 4th of July.

Here are the criteria the panelists used to evaluate their choices....

1) Right positions on the issues- this has two components, understanding what the correct positions are, and having the grit to stick with them even when opposition is encountered.
2) Integrity in their personal, political and business life- if they can’t be trusted, then it does not matter that they espouse the right positions.
3) Effectiveness as a legislator – this can be defined in terms of getting good bills passed, getting bad bills stopped, blowing the whistle on corruption, or skillful use of the bully pulpit to advance good ideas even if they did not make it into law (for example forcing the bad guys to resort to extreme measures to kill a bill while setting it for passage next time).

For the “10 Worst” legislators, the criteria would be the same, but in the negative sense. “Effectiveness” could be treated two ways, either they were ineffective or they were very effective at doing the wrong thing.

Results on "Ten Worst" to follow in about two hours.....