What's a Vote Weigh?

There is no better measure of how a legislator will vote on a helmet law repeal bill than what their voting record is. But not all repeal bills are the same.

A tiny minority call for outright repeal of the helmet law. Most are partial repeal, with some type of age, training, or insurance requirements. Once in a while, they have other conditions, such as medical or religious exemptions, riding within local jurisdictions or on certain roads, or at low speeds during public parades.

Very few repeal bills make it out of committee. And more likely than not, they never make it to a committee vote. Sometimes there simply is no voting record at all, committee or otherwise.

There are other ways to find out how legislators stand on the mandatory helmet law, though. Any bill that separates the nanny-crats from the rest may be worth looking at.

One obvious example is a bill that somehow relates to the wearing of helmets. It could be about the penalty for violating the helmet law, or mandating helmets for snow skiers.

It's also a good idea to check on laws that relate specifically to motorcycles. Forget about fluff bills like motorcycle awareness proclamations. Instead, look at the traditional set of dead-red, exhaust pipe, or motorcycle checkpoint bills.

But aside from repeal bills, the rest provide only a partial picture of how a legislator might vote. As an example, any legislator who opposes a penalty reduction is probably anti-motorcyclist. But support for such a bill is certainly no guarantee of support for repeal.

With this in mind, we can assign a certain weight to how they vote on bills. As an example, a vote on repeal is either +10 or -10. For a penalty reduction bill, it could be +1 for Yea, and -5 for Nay. That's because a Yea doesn't prove much, but a Nay is a good indicator.

I'm compiling as much historical bill information as I can find. In the mean time, I welcome your comments on what a bill is worth, and how much a vote weighs.