AFP-New Jersey releases ’16-’17 taxpayer scorecard

By The Staff
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How well did your state representatives defend your interests (and bank account) over the last two years?

You can click here to read Americans for Property-New Jersey’s 2016-2017 scorecard which was released Tuesday morning.

The only three Democrats to escape a negative score?

LD1’s legislative team of Jeff Van Drew, Bob Andrzejcak and Bruce Land scored a “taxpayer neutral” rating. Van Drew (the southernmost legislative district’s state senate) is currently running for Frank LoBiondo’s House seat but receiving blow back from the Left for his carefully-crafted “moderate” persona.

On the Republican side, six current Republican legislators (Addiego, Bramnick, Clifton, Dancer, DeCroce, and Howarth) also received a ‘neutral’ designation while five other sitting Republicans (Oroho, Singer, Brown, Kean, Rible) were deemed ‘allies of big government’ by APF-NJ.

The crop of Republicans who fared poorly in AFP-NJ’s estimation — including a few ranked for ’16 and ’17 who have since left the legislature like Joe Kyrillos and Kevin O’Toole — were disproportionately supportive of the widely-panned October 2016 gas tax/TTF package relative to the GOP caucus as a whole; Phil Murphy has since decided to restore the state’s 7% sales tax rate which was lowered, slightly, in a vain attempt to offset the gas tax hike’s impact.

How are the scores tabulated?

“Scores are calculated based on total votes taken on AFP-New Jersey’s priority bills. Each vote taken in favor of AFP-New Jersey’s position on a bill is worth one point out of a possible one point. Each vote taken against AFP-New Jersey’s position on a bill is worth zero points out of a possible one point,” the scorecard’s authors explained. “After the vote count is tallied, legislators are awarded an additional half point to their earned point total for each prime sponsorship of a priority bill that AFPNew Jersey supports. Legislators are deducted an additional half point from their earned point total for each prime sponsorship of a priority bill that AFP-New Jersey opposes. A legislator’s earned points are divided by the total votes each legislator took on AFP-New Jersey priority bills to generate a percentage score (the sponsorship points do not affect the vote total, only the legislator’s earned points).”

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