What happens when your children bring home a report card FULL of ‘F’s? What about when an employee continually fails to deliver on expectations? Do you make excuses and send them back to do the same things they’ve been doing? Absolutely not!

So many of our state ‘employees’ have failed to deliver on the expectations of The People—their employers. Because of this, many are being challenged in the March 4 primary, and rightfully so.

However, I am seeing a lot of excuses being made for one particular state representative, who happened to bring home a report card full of ‘F’s—and it’s getting a bit disturbing to watch.

If someone goes into their district, campaigns as a liberal democrat and wins, then goes into the Texas House and legislates like a liberal democrat, well…at least they’re being true-to-form.

However, Rep. Sarah Davis of HD 134 campaigns as a “Conservative Voice in Austin,” despite having left the 83rd Session bearing the title of “Most Liberal Republican in the Texas House.” She earned that title not from conservative activists, but from an independent study done by Mark Jones of Rice University’s Political Science department.

You can see a bird’s eye view of Davis’ record at RepSarahDavis.com. There you will see that she scored a 44 percent on scorecards issued by Young Conservatives of Texas, Texas Eagle Forum and TFR, and earned a 2 on Texas Right to Life’s scorecard. (Yes, she is the only unabashedly pro-choice Republican in the Texas Legislature.)

Davis quickly came out to defend her stance against the pro-life legislation that made her colleague in the Senate, Wendy Davis, famous. And, as we have previously covered, she will try to convince voters that no matter where she may stand on abortion and other social issues, she’s still fiscally conservative—that she is a firm believer in “limited government” and “personal freedoms.”

While Davis may assume her district is full of naïve voters, I assume it’s not. It’s pretty clear: as one’s stance on social issues goes, so goes their stance on fiscal issues—and vice versa.

So—aside from the fact that as a Texas woman, the picture of a Republican woman draped in an orange blanket during the abortion debates will forever be ingrained in my mind—I cannot stress enough that there is not one thing in Davis’ record that gives her the ability to claim to be a “Conservative Voice.”

You can see Davis’ scores at RepSarahDavis.com, but below you’ll find a few of her votes illustrating quite the opposite of a belief in limited government and personal freedom:

  • Favored giving unelected bureaucracies new cease-and-desist powers (RV77)
  • Favored removing oversight power from the UT Board of Regents, along with their ability to exercise independent oversight authority (RV145, RV146)
  • Favored spending more money on corporate welfare slush funds, allowing the government to pick winners and losers in the marketplace (RV158)
  • Favored opening the door for Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare (RV161)
  • Favored wasting taxpayer dollars on government-funded art projects over volunteer firefighters (RV175)
  • Opposed eliminating licensing requirements for interior designers (RV258)
  • Favored new regulations on architects (RV262)
  • Favored new regulations on “teeth whitening” services (RV276)
  • Favored adding more regulations on plumbers (RV528)
  • Favored new regulations on veterinary medicine and barriers to becoming a veterinary technician (RV545)
  • Favored increasing taxes on small manufacturers at the behest of big business (RV577)
  • Favored mandating new insurance coverages (RV647)
  • Favored new nanny-state regulations on high-school sports (RV678)
  • Favored new regulations on foundation repair contractors (RV747)
  • Favored creating unconstitutional requirements on political speech while exempting labor unions from the new rules (RV811)
  • Favored increasing state spending by 26% compared to the last legislative session, and voted to increase her own legislative pension in the process (RV1334 & RV1336)

Basically, it is only when Davis wants to step on the very first and most precious of our natural and inalienable rights—the right to Life—that she is for limiting government.

If she wants to pass overreaching regulations on other industries and spend taxpayer money without pause…well, her “principles” of limited government and personal freedoms are conveniently nowhere to be found.

With early voting for the March 4 primary beginning tomorrow, February 18, it’s important for voters to take a look beyond the campaign rhetoric. It’s time we remember our responsibility to elect leaders who will stand on principle, rather than politicians who will say whatever it takes to get reelected.

Morgan Williamson

Morgan serves as the Managing Editor for Texas Scorecard—monitoring our media presence, both online and in print. She is a Texas native, Texas State graduate, and veteran staffer of the 83rd Texas Legislature. Aside from a good dose of editing & strategizing, Morgan enjoys proper grammar usage, a lot of coffee, and good company.

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