Despite polices that have caused the Ocean State to suffer the 50th ranked business climate, the 48th rank in Family Prosperity, and the 47th rank in Jobs & Opportunity, our new 2016 “Sheeple” index demonstrates that there is scant dissent among Rhode Island lawmakers who vote for such policies.

This index ranks how often state Representatives and Senators voted in lock-step with leadership. Even with the 2016 General Assembly scoring a dismal (-54.1) on the Center’s 2016 Freedom Index, there was little opposition as more than half of all lawmakers voted with the House Speaker or the Senate President over 95% of the time.

The 2016 “Sheeple” index is a collaboration between WatchdogRI.org and our Center.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Lawmakers who were not present and missed votes are artificially credited in this “sheeple” index as having not voted with leadership. Please refer to the “missed votes” (or Walker) index here to see how many votes any particular lawmaker incurred.

Of the 2016 House’s 489 bills examined, excluding resolutions and solemnizations: 24 Representatives voted at least 98% of the time with the Speaker, with the worst-five “sheeple” offenders are:

John DeSimone (99.8%)

(99.8%) Ray Johnston, Jr (99.8%)

(99.8%) Michael Morin (99.6%)

(99.6%) Brian Kennedy (99.39%)

(99.39%) Lauren Carson (99.2%).

Of the Senate’s 487 bills, 11 Senators surpassed the 98% sheeple threshold, the five least independent when it came to casting votes in lock-step with the Senate President are:

Susan Sosnowski (99.6%)

(99.6%) Dominick Ruggerio (99.2%)

(99.2%) Erin Lynch (99.2%)

(99.2%) Steve Archambault (98.8%)

(98.8%) Hanna Gallo (98.6%)

“In a healthy democracy, there should be a rigorous debate of diverse policies. Sadly, and conversely in Rhode Island, it seems that when leadership authorizes bills to move forward, legislators feel compelled to automatically support them,” commented Mike Stenhouse, CEO for the Center. “The statistics in this report present an alarming pattern of elected officials blindly following the leader. Voters this November must decide if this is how they want their government to be run.”