Centerfield

Actually, Jeff Flake doesn't surprise me much. He's always struck me as an Old School conservative, i.e. fiscally conservative, and socially liberal (or rather not so much socially liberal as the government should mind it's own business)

He did volunteer/missionary work in South Africa, so I would actually trust him with entitlement purse strings. At least he's put his own money and time where his mouth is.

Of course, like any politician, he's done things I don't like as well...

I like Jeff Flake but lets be real he's conservative...but one who takes his fiscal conservatism serious. Jim Kolbe is more moderate than Flake (if you're looking for a moderate Republican representative from AZ)

I can appreciate the amount of work it takes to put together these kind of liberal-conservative voting record rankings; however, after looking over the rankings, I have to seriously question whatever criteria the National Journal used in establishing their "liberal" and "conservative" ratings.

First off, gaze at the rankings and you will find that Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas is listed as the second most liberal politician in the House. That alone ought to be a major red flag that something is askew with these rankings.

Congressman Ron Paul is by far the most libertarian politician in either house of congress (he ran for president in 1988 under the Libertarian Party banner and is the only politician in either house of congress that regularly receives the support of the Libertarian Party). In his 15+ years in congress, he has voted against bigger government legislation more often and more consistently than any other House member, often producing the lone "nay" vote for legislation passed with near-unanimous support from both parties, a distinction which has earned him the nickname of "Dr. No." On fiscal matters, he is without a doubt the most conservative politician in either house of congress. He has been a consistent critic of both the New Deal and activist judges on the Supreme Court.

And for this, he has earned the National Journal's distinction as the second most liberal member of the House. With a liberal-conservative composite score of 60.3/39.7, we are to believe that Ron Paul is more "liberal" than such liberal-moderate Republicans as Chris Shays of Connecticutt and Mike Castle of Delaware as well as 32 House Democrats.

A similar discrepancy exists with Republican Congressman Jeff Flake of Arizona, as previously noted by another poster. Although Jeff Flake is not near as libertarian as Ron Paul, he is, like Ron Paul, a member of the libertarian-leaning Republican Liberty Caucus. With one of the most fiscally conservative records in congress, he can hardly be considered a "centrist."

This data, I believe, is not a measure of each politician's "liberal" or "conservative" record but rather a measurement of their partisan voting records. In other words, a politician's degree of "liberalism" or "conservatism" seems to be determined by how often they tow the party line rather than what their underlying political philosophy is. As a result of this flawed system, Democrats who are the most likely to support the president's policies are considered "conservative" (even if they generally support bigger government policies) while Republicans who are the most likely to oppose the president's policies are considered "liberal" (even if they generally oppose bigger government policies).

This only reinforces my belief that the terms "liberal" and "conservative" have lost virtually all meaning in society today and serve more to distort the political philsophies of one's opponents than to engage in meaningful debate. I don't believe that the National Journal necessarily had any political bias in compiling these rankings; however, I seriously question the criteria used. The idea that libertarian-leaning, free market, smaller government Republicans represent the "liberal" wing of the Republican Party ought to show us all just how much the terms "liberal" and "conservative" have become distorted over the years.

Nic,

As a libertarian, wouldn't it be fair to say that Ron Paul is more liberal than most on social issues; hence, when you balance that with his view on economic issues he is more liberal than most moderate Republicans?

As a libertarian, wouldn't it be fair to say that Ron Paul is more liberal than most on social issues; hence, when you balance that with his view on economic issues he is more liberal than most moderate Republicans?

No, it wouldn't be fair considering that 1) Ron Paul has criticized liberal positions (including socially liberal positions such as abortion and judicial activism) on several occassions and would be appalled at any suggestion that he is among the most liberal Republicans in congress, and 2) liberals do not take consistently libertarian/pro-choice positions on social policy (i.e. gun control, affirmative action, hate-crime legislation), and thus, it's not completely fair to call libertarians socially liberal (although I personally believe that libertarians share more in common with liberals than they do conservatives on social issues, particularly in the areas of civil liberties).

I am not aware of the criteria that the National Journal used to rank the ideologies of the members of the Senate and the House, but here is my best guess as to how Congressman Ron Paul, far and away the most libertarian member in Congress, came to be ranked as the second most liberal member of the House:

1) The National Journal measured "liberalism" based upon the proportion of the votes a given member of congress cast in favor of "liberal" legislation or against "conservative" legislation; likewise, the National Journal measured "conservatism" based upon the proportion of the votes a given member of congress cast in favor of "conservative" legislation or against "liberal" legislation.

2) Legislation was considered "liberal" if it was supported by a greater proportion of Democrats than Republicans and was considered "conservative" if it was supported by a greater proportion of Republicans than Democrats.

3) As a libertarian with a history of voting against the majority of legislation that he has had the opportunity to vote upon during his 15+ years of Congress, it is likely that Congressman Ron Paul also voted against the majority of legislation proposed in 2005 (the year which these rankings cover).

4) Because Republicans controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives in 2005, the vast majority of the legislation proposed in 2005 was written by Republicans, and thus, was supported by a greater proportion of Republicans than Democrats. Based upon assumption 2 above, the vast majority of legislation proposed in 2005 would have been considered by the National Journal to be "conservative" legislation.

5) Based upon assumption 4 above, opposing most of the legislation proposed in 2005 would have given a member of congress a net "liberal" rating, despite the fact the a member of Congress could have opposed virtually all of the legislation on libertarian grounds.

6) Congressman Ron Paul has been a vocal critic of the War in Iraq, the War on Drugs, and federal spending, positions that have put him at odds with President Bush and the House Republican leadership. Based upon his libertarian principles, Ron Paul voted against 2005 spending increases for the War in Iraq, for the 2005 Hinchey-Rohrbacher Amendment that would have ended the federal government's prosecution of medical marijuana users, and against much of the 2005 discretionary spending advocated by President Bush and the House Republican leadership.

Thus, any member of Congress who voted in opposition to the majority of the policies advocated by President Bush or the House Republican leadership in 2005 would have been given a "liberal" rating, even if said member of Congress did so on libertarian grounds.

However, that's just my best guess at what happened. If anyone here knows of the actual criteria used by the National Journal to establish the liberal-conservative composite scores, please let us all know.

Okay, so I've read over the methodology that the National Journal used to calculate their liberal-conservative composite scores, and I can tell you that it's a lot more complex than I made it out to be.

First of all, it divided all legislation into three types: economic policy, social policy, and foreign policy.

Second, each vote was weighted, based on the degree to which it correlated with other votes in the same issue area. The National Journal explains that a higher weight means that a vote was more strongly correlated with other votes and was therefore a better test of economic, social, or foreign-policy ideology.

Third, percentages do not indicate the proportion of the votes a given member cast for a liberal or conservative position; rather, a liberal/conservative percentage means that a given member of congress voted more liberal/conservative than that percentage of his/her colleagues, respectively.

As to the reason why Congressman Ron Paul came out as relative "liberal" in these rankings, Matthew previous cited the possibility of Ron Paul's socially liberal votes outweighing his fiscally conservative votes, thereby giving him a net "liberal" score. Given the breakdown of House votes by economic, social, and foreign policy, Matthew's theory appears to be largely correct, as social and foreign policy (issues which libertarians tend to disagree most with conservatives) appear to have made up 66 of the total 107 votes (61.7%) cast in 2005, while economic policy (issues which libertarians tend to agree most with conservatives only made up 41 of the total 107 votes (38.3%) cast in 2005.

But here's the kicker.

According to House Vote Ratings Congressman Ron Paul was given conservative ratings of 46%, 45%, and 28% on economic policy, social policy, and foreign policy, respectively. In other words, the National Journal judged Ron Paul to be more conservative than 46% of his colleagues on economic policy, more conservative than 45% of his colleagues on social policy, and more conservative than 28% of his colleagues on foreign policy. Given Ron Paul's vocal criticisms of his party regarding the Iraq War and the curtailment of civil liberties, the fact that he was given relatively "liberal" ratings on social and fiscal policy is unsurprising. It's the 46% conservative rating on fiscal policy that I find astonishing. Ron Paul--the most consistent advocate of limited government in congress today is supposedly more liberal than 54% of his colleagues on economic matters.

Yet, when you look at what the National Journal considered to be "conservative" positions on economic matters, it becomes abundantly clear as to how the National Journal arrived at a relatively "liberal" voting record for Congressman Ron Paul on economic matters. Approving the pork-laden budget resolution, supporting the president's government programs, and federalizing aspects of the court which were once left to state judiciaries were all considered "conservative" positions, despite the fact that libertarians and Taft-Goldwater conservatives of old would have opposed such policies.

Thus, having now read the methodology that the National Journal used and reviewing what was deemed to be the "conservative" and "liberal" positions on each of the 107 pieces of legislation considered by the House in 2005, my conclusion is exactly the same as before. Conservativism was not measured by the degree to which politicians advocated limited government principles; it was measured by the degree to which politicians voted in accordance to the positions of President Bush and the Republican leadership.

By simply looking at the liberal-conservative rankings without researching a given politician's voting record on each individual piece of legislation, there is absolutely no way to determine whether the "liberals" in these rankings were 1) members of congress who espouse genuinely liberal positions, 2) partisan Democrats who vote against Bush and the Republican Leadership irrespective of the merits of the legislation, or 3) libertarians/limited government conservatives who tend to vote against Bush and the Republican Leadership because they genuinely believe that Bush and the Republican Leadership have abandoned smaller government principles.

I think this is all the more reason why we all ought to be more skeptical of those liberal-conservative rankings that oh-so-conveniently come out just months before the presidential elections. I tend to give the National Journal the benefit of the doubt as being a politically neutral entity without an axe to grind, but as the run up to the 2004 election showed, partisans used the National Journal's 2003 liberal-conservative rankings to give a rather distorted view of one of the presidential candidate's political philosophy.

Given the ever-evolving definitions of the terms "liberal" and "conservative", ranking politicians by the degree of "liberalism" or "conservatism" is just too subjective a measurement and is open to misinterpretation. A more concrete measurement on a politician's voting record would simply to measure the percent of the time a politician votes in favor of limited government/expanded government. I mean, a spending increase is a spending increase regardless of whether it's supported by Democrats or Republicans.

As with all such rankings, these rankings are based on roll-call votes selected by National Journal editors, 70 votes in the Senate and 107 votes in the House, broken down into 3 categories: economic policy, social policy, and foreign policy. The analysis for vote selection and ranking was fairly complex, with each vote assigned a weight from 1 to 3 based on the degree to which it corellated with other votes in the same issue area. Votes on which there was strong correlation were weighed more heavily in computing the scores. Each vote was classified as liberal or conservative, and that's how the final scores were tallied. You can see comparisons of the Members broken down by economic policy, social policy, and foreign policy here.

Obviously, this methodology is premised on a liberal-conservative scale, and so does not easily account for or properly classify libertarians. A quick Google search revealed that the Republican Liberty Caucus PAC has a "liberty index", relying on 40 roll call votes in each chamber, 20 on personal liberty issues and 20 on economic liberty issues. The votes were chosen by Clifford F. Thies, past chairman of the caucus and Professor of Economics and Finance at Shenandoah University.

Nic, if you're really interested, you could probably take the actual votes measured in the National Journal and reclassify them based on libertarian vs. non-libertarian. Put it in a spreadsheet and recalculate the totals to perform the analysis you're interested in.

To identify moderates/centrists I tend to look at those who associate with the DLC, RMSP and It's my party too.

A legislator may be for a compromise that raises teacher salaries and allows voucher projects.
But if the only floor vote is to raise the salaries then they may vote no. But that doesn't really reflect their opinions but only how they felt they had to vote in that overly simplified choice.

Kerry was for the war before he was against it.
I understand how this can happen when compromise and collaboration is thwarted.

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