2006 Congressional Vote Ratings Released
| Fri Mar. 2, 2007 9:29 AM PST
I'm going to spoil the big surprise up front: Barack Obama is more liberal than Dennis Kucinich.
Now the context. National Journal has put out a series of lists in which they rate every lawmaker in the House and Senate on how they voted in 2006. (There's a link on the Mother Jones News and Politics page, your home for 2008 presidential coverage and general Washington news.) You can see the most liberal and most conservative members of Congress. You can see where Lieberman stands (not the most conservative Dem). And perhaps most interestingly, you can see where the presidential candidates fall.
The New York Times political blog dug a little deeper and found lifetime ratings. The results?
On a scale of one to 100, with 100 being the most liberal, here are the Dems:
Senator Barack Obama: 84.3
Representative Dennis Kucinich: 79.4
Senator Christopher J. Dodd: 79.2
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: 78.8
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr.: 76.8
On a scale of one to 100, with 100 being the most conservative, here are the Republicans:
Representative Duncan Hunter: 82.5
Senator Sam Brownback: 81
Representative Tom Tancredo: 75.9
Senator John McCain: 71.8
Senator Chuck Hagel: 71.5
Representative Ron Paul: 51.7
Due to lack of votes in Congress, certain contenders for the nominations are left off.
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Comments
Submitted by Richard Aberdeen (not verified) on Fri Mar. 2, 2007 2:55 PM PST.
Who determines whether a vote is liberal or conservative? For example, would someone who supports the death penalty (for all congressmen and women and certain administration officials), favors abortion (in the case of all religious conservative fundamentalists), opposses enviornmental pollution (including especially speechs by Dick Cheney), supports a maximum wage allowable and supports allowing open discussion of any and all viewpoints in our nation's science classrooms, be classified as a high-ranking liberal, low-ranking liberal, moderate conservative or high-ranking conservative?
Submitted by Sean Robertson (not verified) on Sat Mar. 3, 2007 6:56 AM PST.
I agree, these rankings are totally useless. Instead, rank them on a graph like this:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2
That solves the problem Richard Aberdeen point out. His example politician would end up in the lower left (probably a little bit above Nelson Mandela in the last chart on that page).
So reproductive rights don't count as liberal? Or is it just that they don't count as important?
Kucinich has a staunch pro-life voting record. "He supported Bush's reinstatement of the gag rule for recipients of US family planning funds abroad. He supported the Child Custody Protection Act, which prohibits anyone but a parent from taking a teenage girl across state lines for an abortion. He voted for the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which makes it a crime, distinct from assault on a pregnant woman, to cause the injury or death of a fetus. He voted against funding research on RU-486. He voted for a ban on dilation and extraction (so-called partial-birth) abortions without a maternal health exception. He even voted against contraception coverage in health insurance plans for federal workers--a huge work force of some 2.6 million people (and yes, for many of them, Viagra is covered)." -Katha Pollitt
