The Spirit of 76 lives on in the Republican Party. The Pachyderm Coalition, a Republican club, rated Republican legislators during this past session on their voting records and bill sponsorships. The top three Republican Senators and Representatives will be honored with the Spirit of 76 Award for their dedication to voting for and sponsoring bills aligned with the Republican principles and voting against bills contrary to those principles. Legislators had to serve during the entire legislative session to be eligible for an award. The Senators being honored are (1) Bob Burns, LD9; (2) Ron Gould, LD3, and Thayer Verschoor, LD22. The Representatives being honored are (1) Russell Pearce, LD18; (2) Nancy Barto, LD7; and (3) Rick Murphy, LD9.

The awards will be formally presented at a Pachyderm Coalition event later in the year.

The ratings were updated on a public web site during the session on a weekly basis in order to track how legislators were voting during the session. To the extent possible, legislators knew, before voting, how they would be scored on their votes based on publicly available criteria. This is one of the most open legislator evaluation processes used by any evaluating organization.

Bills were given weights to determine how important the Pachyderm Coalition determined them to be. Bills with positive weights were supported and bills with negative weights opposed. These are the criteria used for determining the weights:

1. Supports US Constitution
2. Supports Republican Party Platform
3. Supports individual / private sector empowerment over government empowerment
4. Supports national security (including illegal alien issues)
5. Reduces government spending
6. Reduces tax rates in general
7. Will have a significant impact

Details of the evaluation are available at www.pachydermcoalition.com. Go to the Legislative Report tab.