On Thursday, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce released their annual legislator scores. State Senator Mark Stoops (D-Bloomington) had the following statement in response to being ranked last place:
“I am proud to announce I have been given the lowest four year grade of any sitting member of the State Senate by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber cited my votes standing up for teachers, protecting the environment and expanding health coverage to sick kids as reasons for grading me so low. They left one out, though – I also supported a bill that would have guaranteed pregnant women would be given reasonable accommodations in the workplace, if the Chamber had not corralled so many of their “high-scoring” friends to vote against it. The Chamber and I did agree on one thing though, and that was increasing funding for preschool. The Chamber only pushed for it so more parents could go to work, of course, but as soon as I asked them to give up some of their whopping $1 billion per year tax cuts in order to pay for it, they fell silent.”