Writing:Policy positions of state legislators

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This page is a content-and-style guide about how to write sections about the policy positions of incumbent state legislators and candidates for state legislature.

The purpose of this section is to familiarize your reader with the positions that the legislator or candidate takes on various policies and bills.

The section should be called "Campaign themes" and should be a subsection of Elections under the year that the candidate/incumbent is running for.

Evidence for what a legislator/candidate's policy positions are come from:

* The legislation he or she supports, or says they will support.
* The person's overall voting record. In some states, groups or individuals provide assessments of a legislator's guiding philosophy based on the legislator's votes on a variety of bills.
* How the legislator/candidate describes his/her views.

You can add a bullet-pointed list of policy positions, derived from the multiple sources indicated above, or you can create subsections within this section, labeling them with words like "Taxes," "Marijuana," etc...whatever the general topic is that you're going to explain the legislator's views on in the actual subsection.

Ideally, issue positions will be added from as many different sources as possible.

Some things to watch for:

* In many states, there will be some kind of local organization that provides more detailed information about candidates -- including scorecards or policy positions. Much of that information does not become available until October, so for these components there is a need to re-check for more data on a consistent basis.
* For candidates, one of the easiest ways to add policy positions will be to take them from the official campaign website. See the following for examples

* Stanley Novak#Policy positions
* Rebecca Kubacki#Policy positions

For candidates, these lists will be simple and likely only refer to the issues they are campaigning under.

For legislators, these sections can be expanded to include actual stance on existing legislation or voting records.

## Contents

* 1 Places to look for policy position info
* 2 Examples
* 3 Usage
* 3.1 2018
* 3.1.1 General election
* 3.1.2 Democratic primary election
* 3.1.3 Republican primary election
* 3.1.4 Campaign themes
* 4 Research requirements

### Places to look for policy position info[edit]

* Local organizations that provide questionnaires on issues
* Official campaign website

## Examples[edit]

* Laurie Poppe
* Sean Byrnes

## Usage[edit]

XX Located under the elections section XX

### 2018[edit]

See also: Texas House of Representatives elections, 2018

#### General election[edit]

Elections for the Texas House of Representatives took place in 2018. An open primary election took place on March 6, 2018.[1] A primary runoff election took place on May 22, 2018. The general election was held on November 6, 2018. The candidate filing deadline was December 11, 2017.[2] Incumbent John Raney (R) and Josh Wilkinson (D) are running in the Texas House of Representatives District 14 general election.

Ballotpedia will publish vote totals here after they become available.

Texas House of Representatives, District 14 General Election, 2018

Party | Candidate
| Republican |  John Raney Incumbent
| Democratic |  Josh Wilkinson

#### Democratic primary election[edit]

Josh Wilkinson defeated Alex Vidal in the Texas House of Representatives District 14 Democratic primary election.

Texas House of Representatives, District 14 Democratic Primary, 2018

Candidate | Vote % | Votes
Josh Wilkinson | 63.17% | 2,429
Alex Vidal | 36.83% | 1,416
Total Votes | 3,845

#### Republican primary election[edit]

Incumbent John Raney defeated Sarah Laningham, Rick Davis, and Jeston Texeira in the Texas House of Representatives District 14 Republican primary election.

Texas House of Representatives, District 14 Republican Primary, 2018

Candidate | Vote % | Votes
John Raney Incumbent | 57.70% | 4,917
Sarah Laningham | 23.53% | 2,005
Rick Davis | 17.06% | 1,454
Jeston Texeira | 1.71% | 146
Total Votes | 8,522

#### Campaign themes[edit]

XNAMEX's campaign website

“  |

[3]

| ”

|
|

—XNAMEX[4]

## Research requirements[edit]

You'll need the ability to:

* Locate websites that compile information about legislation sponsored by state legislators.
* Find out if any groups, individuals or newspapers in the state issue "Legislative scorecards."
* Research news sources to find out what you can about the person's policy positions.
* Find other relevant sources.

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2022|

State legislative elections (2022) • State legislative special elections (2022) • Primary dates and filing requirements • 2022 Session Dates

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State legislative elections (2021) • State legislative special elections (2021) • Primary dates and filing requirements • 2021 Session Dates

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1. ↑ National Conference of State Legislatures, "State Primary Election Systems," accessed May 29, 2017
2. ↑ Texas Secretary of State, "Important 2018 Election Dates," accessed September 11, 2017
3. ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
4. ↑ [website XWEBSITEX 2017 campaign website, "Issues," accessed August 23, 2017]