John Hood wished to call attention to a couple state legislator score cards. Civitas Action developed its Conservative Rankings by counting the number of bills on which each senator and representative voted “conservatively.” They then posted each legislator’s percentage of conservative votes and the ranking this earned them. Buncombe County’s Martin Nesbitt is second from the bottom in the Senate, which could explain why he is being considered for speakership. Joe Sam Queen scored 10%, and Tom Apodaca blew the to off the curve with conservative votes on 52% of bills. In the House, Susan Fisher managed to out-do Nesbitt’s 2.1% with a score of 2.0%. Bruce Goforth did better with 8%. The highest scorer in either house was Winston-Salem’s Representative Dale Folwell, who voted conservatively on 89.8% of bills.

The other scorecard was the NC FreeEnterprise Foundation’s Business Ratings. Scoring was a little more complex, and involved a combination of voting records and opinions of select business leaders. Pro-business was defined in terms of support for low corporate taxes, property rights, and minimal regulation, among other things. Tom Apodaca was scored as pro-business 85.3% of the time. Joe Sam Queen and Martin Nesbitt were rated as “occasional” supporters of business with scores of 47.1 and 39.4%, respectively. Bruce Goforth scored 75.2%, and Susan Fisher came in fourth from the bottom with a score of 29.0%.