Freedom Democrats Scorecard of the Senate

A total of twenty votes were used to score the current Senate on their views of economic, trade, social, and defense related issues. Senators elected in 2004 were excluded because they do not have a voting record that is covered by the 107th and 108th Congress. Senators that were defeated in 2004 or 2002 were also not scored. Senators that were elected in 2002 were scored based only on the votes they could have voted for. This means that Senators Murkowski (Alaska), Pryor (Arkansas), Coleman (Minnesota), Talent (Missouri), Sununu (New Hampshire), Lautenberg (New Jersey), Alexander (Tennessee), and Cornyn (Texas) were scored on sixteen votes, not twenty. If a Senator was in office it was assumed he could have voted on the legislation and not-voting was scored the same as voting against the position favored by the scorecard. This contributed to the extremely low score of Senator Kerry, who spent most of his time campaigning instead of being a Senator.

Please see the individual files for information on the votes used in the scorecard. The first section concerns fiscal and trade votes and the second section scores social and defense votes.

The highest scorer overall was Senator Feingold of Wisconsin with 90%, voting with the scorecard on eighteen of the twenty votes. Following Feingold were Senator Bingaman of New Mexico (65%), Senator Sununu of New Hampshire (62.5%), Senator Jeffords of Vermont (60%), Senator Murray of Washington (60%), Senator Reed of Rhode Island (60%), Senator Stabenow of Michigan (60%), and Senator Durbin of Illinois (60%). It is clear that there is a large gap between Feingold and the rest of the top scorers; this can be a cause of dismay and also one of hope for improvement in the future among our elected officials in Washington.

While Sununu is the lone Republican in the top tier, we note that other Republicans did receive high marks: Senator McCain of Arizona (55%) and Senator Chafee of Rhode Island (50%). The three lowest scores included one Democrat, Senator Kerry of Massachusetts (10%) who was absent in many of the votes and this contributed to his very low score, and two Republicans, Senator Shelby of Alabama (10%) and Senator Smith of Oregon (10%). If we were to give Kerry the benefit of the doubt because he was absent campaigning, the lowest Democrats would be Senator Lieberman of Connecticut (30%) and Senator Dorgan of North Dakota (30%) although we note that the former was also campaigning for the presidential nomination.

Overall the average score for the Senate was 37.75%, with the individual components being an average of 39.97% for economic and trade issues and 35.41% for social and defense issues. Because of rounding and how the scores are calculated this total average is different than if you simply averaged the two separate averages. It is relatively amazing just how low this average score is, however most advocates of freedom and liberty have come to realize how poorly their politicians perform. It is interesting to note the differences between the two major powers, both overall and on the individual issue categories. The average Republican score was 41.95% on economic and trade issues and 14.52% on social and defense issues for an average of 28.33% overall. Democrats averaged 48.26% overall with the individual components being 37.79% for economic and trade and 58.72% for social and defense.

The scorecard indicates that on the votes used, Democrats scored significantly better than Republicans. Overall the gap between the two parties is 19.93%. This gap was created through two ways. First, Democrats performed well relative to the Republicans when it came to economic and trade issues, an area that is commonly thought to be where they are weaker when it comes to upholding freedom. Republicans only had an advantage of 4.16% on economic and trade issues. Second, Democrats performed extremely well on social and defense issues and Republicans did poorly. The gap in social and defense issues was a huge 44.2% advantage.

In 2006 one third of the Senate will be up for reelection. Previously only a few members have been highlighted, but the following will present a list of all members up for reelection in order from the highest score overall to the lowest.

New Mexico: Democratic Senator Bingaman (65%)
Michigan: Democratic Senator Stabenow (60%)
Vermont: Independent Senator Jeffords (60%) (Retiring)
Maryland: Democratic Senator Sarbanes (55%) (Retiring)
Minnesota: Democratic Senator Dayton (55%) (Retiring)
New York: Democratic Senator Clinton (55%)
Massachusetts: Democratic Senator Kennedy (50%)
New Jersey: Democratic Senator Corzine (50%) (Running for Governor in 2005)
Rhode Island: Republican Senator Chafee (50%)
Washington: Democratic Senator Cantwell (50%)
Wisconsin: Democratic Senator Kohl (50%)

The above Senators are the eleven of the thirty three that managed to score a 50% or higher. A complete ideologue would be expected to score at least 50% on this scorecard. That is to say an extreme ‘liberal’ would score 100% on social and defense issues and a 0% on economic and trade issues, for an average of 50%. The opposite would be true of an extreme ‘conservative.’ Or that is what the conventional political wisdom is. Lower than a 50% is a relatively abysmal score. If the blog were to become active in the support of an incumbent a bare minimum should be that they at least score a 50%. Further we might want to only consider Senators with a score of at least 50% in both categories, which would narrow us down to Senator Clinton of New York, Senator Stabenow of Michigan, and Senator Bingaman of New Mexico.

During the winter of 2005, following the end of the first session of the 109th Congress, this scorecard will be expanded and it will be around that time that endorsements will be seriously considered. At this time it can be said with some certainty that Independent Congressman Sanders of Vermont has a clear edge to replace Jim Jeffords, but the Democratic primaries in Maryland and Minnesota are still contested. Corzine’s seat, if he were to become Governor of New Jersey, would most likely be filled by a Democratic Congressman whose scorecard from the House would be used as a guide of their expected record in the Senate. The following Senators at this time have less than 50%. Among the Democrats this indicates that they are not likely candidates for endorsement at this time, while the Republicans are those that we would be most likely to want to defeat.

California: Democratic Senator Feinstein (45%)
Delaware: Democratic Senator Carper (45%)
Florida: Democratic Senator Nelson (45%)
Hawaii: Democratic Senator Akaka (45%)
Nevada: Republican Senator Ensign (40%)
North Dakota: Democratic Senator Conrad (40%)
Maine: Republican Senator Snowe (35%)
Nebraska: Democratic Senator Nelson (35%)
Pennsylvania: Republican Senator Santorum (35%)
West Virginia: Democratic Senator Byrd (35%)
Wyoming: Republican Senator Thomas (35%)
Missouri: Republican Senator Talent (31.25%)
Arizona: Republican Senator Kyl (30%)
Connecticut: Democratic Senator Lieberman (30%)
Ohio: Republican Senator DeWine (30%)
Texas: Republican Senator Hutchinson (30%)
Mississippi: Republican Senator Lott (25%)
Tennessee: Republican Senator Frist (25%) (Retiring)
Indiana: Republican Senator Lugar (20%)
Utah: Republican Senator Hatch (20%)
Virginia: Republican Senator Allen (20%)
Montana: Republican Senator Burns (15%)

Among the Democrats the potentially vulnerable include Nelson of Florida, Conrad of North Dakota, Nelson of Nebraska, and Byrd of West Virginia. At this time these Senators have not established a clear record that would encourage me to strongly support their reelection efforts. Some of the vulnerable Republicans that I would like to see defeated include Burns of Montana, Allen of Virginia, DeWine of Ohio, Kyle of Arizona, Talent of Missouri, and Santorum of Pennsylvania. A judgment must first be made on their challengers before an endorsement can be recommended.

Returning to the Democrats that scored above 50%, we can note that Bingaman of New Mexico and Stabenow of Michigan have been mentioned as potentially vulnerable. At this time, however, attempts to recruit strong Republican challengers have failed. If this continues to be the case, my inclination is to turn to the Maryland and Minnesota primaries in order to ensure that a Democrat who will support freedom is elected and builds on the tradition of the incumbent. I would also be interested in assessing the Democrat that is appointed to replace Senator Corzine in New Jersey.

I've attached a document file that shows the Senator's economic score, social score, and total score.

Attachment	Size
SenateScorecard01Total.doc	182.5 KB

First of all, there appears to be an error in your scorecard links Logan, the page pops up "Access Denied," but if this executive summary you have complied is any indicator, I can't wait to see the raw numbers.

Data like this really gives libertarians a chance to effect change in the Democratic party by selecting leaders who are not slaves to unions or pander to anti-globalization groups. As Russ Feingold shows us, being in favor of social freedoms doesn't essentially force you to be a socialist as well. I also find it very interesting that there is a good reason why John McCain is so popular with Democrats, when compared to the current Republican leadership (Trent Lott and Bill Frist) he practically looks liberal. It might be smart for Democrat strategists to take a two pronged approach to 2006 and 2008: First field excellent liberal candidates and then work to support more McCains, Sununus, and Chafees to undermine the current Republican leadership. That way, even if Dems can't reclaim a majority or the White House, we can remove the right wing edifice created by Newt Gingrich and currently maintained by Bush and Frist.

Also, here is an interesting article from the Economist about McCain and the Dems.

Do the links work now?

I agree that BOTH rankings must be considered. In your example, extreme liberal and extreme conservative both scored 50%, yet I would vote for neither of them! I'd love to see a list ranked by both social and economic scores.

Casey has a very soft primary here (PA). He's probably not ranked very high on either scale, but when it comes down to it, almost anyone would be preferable to Santorum.

By the way, Santorum will probably have problems from the very hard right here in PA, due to his support of Specter in the primary (something he had to do with his leadership position) which angered many conservatives who were supporting Pat Toomey.

You can see, or should be able to see, the economic score at the page that discusses the economic votes, and the social score at the page that discusses the social votes. If these links aren't working, let me know.

In the interest of having a nice summary, I'm attaching right now a document file that will list their economic score, social score, and their total score. Let me know if there are problems with the links.

As I said, of the incumbent Democrats up in 2006 only three score over 50% in each category. And while that's better than others it's not the best. Except for Feingold, I'd say that the Democrats are getting C's while the Republicans are getting D's. Yeah the Democrats are better, but they too have a lot of room for improvement.

Those summary docs are very informative! Thanks for taking the time to research this.

I believe this is the best Congressional scorecard I've ever seen. All of the votes were relevant and most were pretty high-profile, meaning that the Senators couldn't hide behind an obscure party-line vote and should have known that their votes on these bills would be scrutinized. The only vote I would have been ambivalent on is the Lone Wolf vote, but I would have voted with Feingold and the 3 others unless they held hearings that demonstrated that the current law was ineffective and the new law would not be over-inclusive. But as we know, this bill was passed without much deliberation. Feingold has clearly proven himself over the last few years to be the Senator most vigilant about protecting privacy. I guess Bingaman deserves a look, too. I don't know much about him.