Texas Conservative Roundtable is a Fraud
April 11, 2012
Contact: Tony McDonald, Senior Vice Chairman
Mobile: (512) 923-6893
Email: [email protected]
Austin, TX — Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) responded to the release of a “legislative scorecard” by a group calling itself the “Texas Conservative Roundtable.” Though the group fronts as a “conservative” organization, the scorecard released earlier this week (available at http://texasconservativeroundtable.com/2012-scorecards) reveals the organization to be a fraud, as the group gave perfect scores to notoriously moderate Republican legislators and passing scores to liberal Democrats. Out of 181 members of the House and Senate, the group awarded 31 a perfect score and 75 a score of 90-99. The highest scoring Democrat was a 92, while the lowest scoring Democrat in the Senate was a 60 and the lowest scoring Democrat in the House was a 44.
“This scorecard put out by Texas Conservative Roundtable is an insult to voters. It is just a fraudulent tool to give liberal legislators cover in contested primaries so that they can pretend to have the approval of conservative organizations,” commented Tony McDonald, YCT Senior Vice Chairman. “Julie Caruthers Parsley, Bryan Hebert, and others involved with the group are blatantly attempting to misconstrue the records of elected officials in order to manipulate voters.”
Young Conservatives of Texas has produced the longest running set of legislative ratings in Texas, having done so since 1975. The group’s ratings (past and present) are available at www.yct.org/ratings. To contrast the two group’s ratings, Texas Conservative Roundtable awarded a perfect 100% score to Senators Robert Duncan, Kel Seliger, Steve Ogden, and Representative Beverly Wooley. YCT, on the other hand, awarded them some of the lowest scores amongst Republicans for the session, with each earning scores of 47%, 50%, 51%, and 54%, respectively. Amongst YCT’s lowest scoring Republicans, only Senator Jeff Wentworth did not receive a perfect score from Texas Conservative Roundtable; he received a score of 96%.
“As the person who has overseen YCT’s preparation of our legislative ratings, I know how this group of frauds went about preparing their document,” added McDonald. “Rather than pursue an honest course intended to inform voters, they picked and chose lopsided and largely meaningless votes that depicted their desired, liberal candidates in a positive light and depicted conservatives in a negative light. But when notorious liberals like Lon Burnam and Rodney Ellis score a 50 and 60, respectively, the evidence of the fraud is transparent. In the same way that no one honestly believes Senator Ellis is a conservative, they shouldn’t believe that someone like Representative Todd Smith is one either.
“We can only hope that voters do their homework and don’t take fraudulent ratings like these at face value,” said Jeff Morris, YCT State Chairman. “If a voter’s representative cites this scorecard as the sole justification for their conservative credentials, that voter should be very skeptical. We encourage voters to check out YCT’s ratings at www.yct.org and the ratings of other legitimate grassroots conservative organizations to see where their representative really stands.”
Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) has been promoting conservatism at universities across the Lone Star State for over three decades. The state’s most active political youth organization, YCT is composed of hundreds of members and alumni who participate in the full spectrum of politics. YCT issues the most respected ratings of the Texas legislature and is the only conservative group to have done so without interruption over the past 19 legislative sessions. For more information about YCT, please visit www.YCT.org.
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