It's Part IV of the latest lifetime vote ratings from the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) and the American Conservative Union (ACU). Today, it's the moderate-leaning members of the House. Tomorrow, I wrap-up with House conservatives.
Raw data:
ADA
ACU
In case you missed the first three Parts of the ratings, here's my explanation for using the ADA & ACU:
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Why the ADA & ACU? They have among the longest history of doing such vote ratings, the ADA having released ratings back to 1948, the ACU since 1971. This allows for historical comparison with Representatives & Senators of the past 50 years using fairly similar criteria. Plus, the groups aren't particularly focused on one issue or another. Rather, one advocates liberal causes, the other, conservative causes. By averaging the two, I think you reach something close to a good idea where a member of Congress stands. And yes, I have pondered adding other ratings, such as the National Journal's and Congressional Quarterly's rankings. I leave them out because (1) there's not as much history, (2) especially in the National Journal's case, I'm not hot on their methodology (evenly spacing out all members instead of showing exactly how liberal or conservative a member is) and (3) it takes long enough averaging the numbers of 535 Representatives & Senators from 2 organizations, much less adding a 3rd or 4th.
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These are the ratings through the last session of the House, in 2006. Therefore, I've included Representatives who retired or were voted out of office. Retired/resigned Representatives and those who ran for another office are marked with a *, Representatives who lost re-election marked with a **.
A few notes. First, this is the block that contains the majority of the Blue Dogs. There's a reason it's tougher to get Democrats voting the same way on hot-button issues like Iraq: the party is still a big tent. Notice: As of the last session of the House, when the GOP had the majority, there were still more Democrats (14) outside of the liberal 40% end of their party, than Republicans (6) outside of the conservative 40% of their party. And 5 of those Republicans either retired or lost re-election. As you can see, despite the re-alignment of conservative Democrats, especially southern conservative Democrats, to the GOP over the last 40 years, the Democratic party is still more conservative than the Republican party is liberal. And, considering the impending move of moderate-liberal northeastern Republican voters towards the Democratic party, the balance may get even more skewed in the Democrats' favor.
Second, I theorize that next year, many of these most conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans may see their ratings become more liberal. These ratings are based on the votes from a GOP House that brought up hot-button issues that brought out the social conservative in many Democrats (ie. abortion, gay marriage). The Democratic-led House is now ignoring those issues and bringing up votes on topics (ie. minimum wage, whistleblower protection) that nearly all Democrats agree on, as well as moderate Republicans, votes that under GOP rule may never have come up for a vote. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what 2007 brings us.
Also, for those who missed the last three Parts, here are the links:
Part I: '08 Presidential Contenders
Part II: The Senate
Part II: House Liberals
So, here's the list of moderates:
Rick Boucher (D-VA) 79.9
Robert Andrews (D-NJ) 79.8
Gene Green (D-TX) 79.8
Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) 79.8
Mike Doyle (D-PA) 77.9
Bart Stupak (D-MI) 76.7
Dan Lipinski (D-IL) 76.5
Bob Etheridge (D-NC) 76.4
*Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN) 76.3
Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) 76.1
Nick Rahall (D-WV) 76.1
Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) 75.5
Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) 75.2
Artur Davis (D-AL) 74
Jane Harman (D-CA) 73
John Spratt (D-SC) 72.5
David Scott (D-GA) 72.4
Sanford Bishop (D-GA) 71.8
Melissa Bean (D-IL) 70
Bart Gordon (D-TN) 68.4
Leonard Boswell (D-IA) 69.3
John Murtha (D-PA) 69.3
Dennis Cardoza (D-CA) 68.9
Jerry Costello (D-IL) 67.4
Jim Costa (D-CA) 65.5
Chet Edwards (D-TX) 65.5
Alan Mollohan (D-WV) 65.1
Jim Cooper (D-TN) 65
Ben Chandler (D-KY) 64.3
Solomon Ortiz (D-TX) 62
Allen Boyd (D-FL) 61.9
John Salazar (D-CO) 61.8
Jim Matheson (D-UT) 61.7
Marion Berry (D-AR) 60.5
Mike Ross (D-AR) 60.1
Stephanie Herseth (D-SD) 58.3
John Tanner (D-TN) 54.6
Jim Marshall (D-GA) 54.5
**Jim Leach (R-IA) 53.9
Collin Peterson (D-MN) 53.7
*Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) 53.7
Chris Shays (R-CT) 53.4
Tim Holden (D-PA) 52.5
John Barrow (D-GA) 51
Mike McIntyre (D-NC) 50.7
Robert Cramer (D-AL) 48.6
Ike Skelton (D-MO) 48.5
Lincoln Davis (D-TN) 46.8
Henry Cuellar (D-TX) 46.2
**Nancy Johnson (R-CT) 45.8
Charlie Melancon (D-LA) 45.8
**Robert Simmons (R-CT) 45.4
**Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA) 41
Michael Castle (R-DE) 39
Dan Boren (D-OK) 36
Chris Smith (R-NJ) 35.9
Gene Taylor (D-MS) 35
Mark Kirk (R-IL) 34.8
**Sue Kelly (R-NY) 33.1
Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) 33
**Joe Schwarz (R-MI) 32.9
Jim Ramstad (R-MN) 30.8
Jim Gerlach (R-PA) 30.4
Tim Johnson (R-IL) 30
Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) 29.7
Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) 28.9
Dave Reichert (R-WA) 28.8
James Walsh (R-NY) 27.6
Judy Biggert (R-IL) 27.3
Charles Dent (R-PA) 26.8
**Jeb Bradley (R-NH) 26.4
Ron Paul (R-TX) 25.6
**Charles Bass (R-NH) 25.4
Ralph Regula (R-OH) 25.3
Steve LaTourette (R-OH) 25.2
Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) 24.7
Jim Saxton (R-NJ) 24.6
**Curt Weldon (R-PA) 23.5
Tom Davis (R-VA) 23.1
Fred Upton (R-MI) 23.1
Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) 22.3
Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) 22.2
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) 21.9
*Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) 21.8
John McHugh (R-NY) 21.7
*Mark Foley (R-FL) 21.3
Brian Bilbray (R-CA) 20.9
Tom Petri (R-WI) 20.5
Philip English (R-PA) 20.4
**John Sweeney (R-NY) 20.3
Mary Bono (R-CA) 20.3
Also, here is the lifetime rating of the one former "moderate" Representative that was elected back into office in 2006:
Baron Hill (D-IN) 75.8
As always, just another perspective on the ideological balance of Congress. Any questions, I'll try to answer them.