What's another word for zombie?

Our friends over at DemocracyRisingPA have come up with a fascinating ranking of the current crop of Pennsylvania Legislators, including all those freshmen who ran last year on a reform platform. You remember those guys and gals. They promised to change the way Harrisburg conducts the people's business.

Those promises are now running smack into reality. Splat! DemocracyRisingPA has compiled a list of which zombies (I mean lawmakers) voted with party leaders most of the time during the first half of 2007.

Some rank-and-file members vote with leadership 99 percent of the time, according to the chart. Is your lawmaker working for you or the status quo party bosses in Harrisburg? Are they mindless drones who do what their masters' bidding?

More from DemocracyRisingPA (including the link to find where your legislator falls) below:

The Reformers' First Semester: Voting with Leadership
Conventional wisdom says that Republicans exert more party discipline than Democrats. But you can't prove it by the votes of 23 new Republicans and 27 new Democrats in the PA House. In fact, it's the new Democrats who follow their leader with much greater frequency than the new Republicans. Looking at 232 important votes (as of July 9 and excluding resolutions), all first-term Republicans voted with their floor leader less often than all first-term Democrats.

This record makes the first-term lawmakers almost indistinguishable from the veteran lawmakers. The split between veteran Democrats and veteran Republicans is almost as clear and reinforces the point that House Democrats appear to display stronger party discipline than Republicans. Following is the percentage that each group voted with caucus floor leaders:

Freshmen
Democrats: 91-98%
Republicans: 69-86%

Veterans
Democrats: 86-99%*
Republicans: 63-89%

* There is one anomaly. Rep. Robert Belfanti, D-Northumberland, voted just 57% of the time with Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, D-Greene. The next lowest Democrat registered 86%.

Click here for an Excel spreadsheet with data for each first-term lawmaker, and here for an Excel spreadsheet with data for each veteran lawmaker.

What explains this unexpected, if not inconvenient, truth about the new lawmakers? Perhaps Republicans are witnessing:

• a new streak of independence among younger members.
• the effect of being in the minority where it often doesn't matter whether rank-and-file Representatives follow leadership.
• a new streak of independence among younger members.

Perhaps Democrats are seeing:

• the effect of having to govern on the edge of majority so that no Representative can be allowed to stray too far from the party home.
• the influence of a reasonably popular governor of your own party, especially a governor who knows how to raise campaign money.

Maybe we should stop talking about "party discipline" and talk instead of "power discipline." The party names are interchangeable. The effect of power is relatively constant.