Here’s another Annual Scorecard.  This time it’s the Utah Taxpayers Association 2010 Scorecard.  Since 1922, the Utah Taxpayers Association has been “your Tax Watchdog!” 

This year, Rep. Craig Frank scores 100% !!!

As the former Vice-Chair of the House Standing Committee on Revenue and Taxation, Rep. Frank is extremely sensitive to the Utah taxpayer (especially since he is one).  In fact, Rep. Frank was only one of two legislators during the 2010 General Session to propose a bill cutting taxes.  (HB48, Substitute)  Also, in 2008, the Utah Taxpayers Association awarded Rep. Frank with the “Taxpayer Advocate of the Year” award for his work on major privatization legislation.  Rep. Frank believes it’s his responsiblity to “get government out of the business of business.”

Last evening, on Richard Piatt’s SUNDAY EDITION (ksl channel 5), Randy Miller of the Fair Boundaries group, stated that Rep. Craig Frank’s endorsement letter to Jason Chaffetz’s Campaign (in 2008), commented that if elected, Jason would live in his district following the adoption of the “Four District Map” configuration.  As though there was something nefarious about this statement. [Link HERE to ksl.com for video, Segment 1, at the 11:00 mark).

During its 5th Special Session, prior to Jason Chaffetz announcing he was running for the 3rd Congressional District, the State Legislature in December of 2006  adopted a four district map in the likelihood that the U.S. Congress voted to give Washington, DC its own (unconstitutional) Representative seat, thus giving Utah another House seat (for political balancing and buy off reasons) thus increasing the number of Representatives in Congress to 437.  Rep. Frank’s statement wasn’t about “fixing” a district for Jason Chaffetz, but, in fact, was about preparing Utah for what appeared at the time to be inevitable…a 4th District seat.  As had been the case many times before, though, the 4th District seat was not to be…until of course 2012 Reapportionment.

Link HERE for SB5001 (3rd Substitute) Congressional Four Member Redistricting Plan, dated 12/4/06.  This plan was adopted by the legislature, 51-19-5 in the House & 23-4-2 in the Senate.

Link HERE for Robert Gehrke’s Out of Context blog, dated Saturday May 17, 2008

‘Tis the Season for Association scorecards ranking the 2010 Utah Legislature for a variety of specific General Session votes.  First out of the blocks is the GRASSROOTS UTAH rankings.  From GRASSROOTS‘ websight:

GrassRoots has been issuing an annual legislative report card since 1992. The Constitutions of the nation and state are the guides which GrassRoots uses in picking issues for its legislative report card. Bills are picked without regard to any particular individual.

Rep. Mike Morley ranked 1st with 100% (par for the course), with Rep. Craig Frank in 3rd position, bookended by four of the five founders of the Patrick Henry Caucus…on the upper side, Reps. Carl Wimmer and Ken Sumsion AND on the lower side Reps. Steve Sandstrom and Chris Herrod.

Link HERE to see the .PDF version of the 2010 GRASSROOTS scorecard.

Link HERE to GRASSROOTS’ Home Page for past years’ scorecards.