The 1996 Republican Liberty Index of the U.S. Congress, like previous ones, is based on forty key votes, twenty in each of two components: economics and civil liberties. In the area of economics, key votes include the tax supermajority constitutional amendment, votes to override presidential vetoes of shareholder lawsuit and product liability reform, the farm bill, medical savings accounts, welfare reform, the minimum wage, entitlement reform, defense spending and the space station. In the area of civil liberties, key votes include the term limits constitutional amendment, school choice, campaign finance reform, the immigration bill, same-sex marriage, repeal of the assault weapons ban, the anti-terrorism bill, and drug testing.

Issue Variances
    As in the past, there is a clear difference between Republicans and Democrats on economic issues. For the average member of Congress, this difference--on a scale of zero to 100--is thirty to forty points. Also as in the past, there was less of a difference between Republicans and Democrats on civil liberties. However, here, the gap that was formerly small appears to be widening. Democrats have been noticeably sucking up to foreign interventionism, the federalization of crime in the name of “anti-terrorism,” extending the war on drugs to tobacco and alcohol, regulating speech on television and in political campaigns. Even though key votes in the area of civil liberties are carefully selected in order to avoid unintended correlation of libertarian voting with (old fashioned) conservative or liberal voting, the drift of the Democrats away from civil liberties seems to be making its way into the index.

Senate Rating Leaders
     In the Senate, Brown (R-CO) and Lugar (R-IN), the only two Senators who are classified as “libertarians,” achieved the highest combined scores, 76 and 75. Brown, who did not run for re-election, had previously been #1 in 1992. On the economics component, Brown got 90, and McCain (R-AZ) and Coats (R-IN) got 85’s. On the civil liberties component, Stevens (R-AK) and Bennet (R-UT) got 79’s. The three lowest combined scores, 22, were set by Bingaman (D-NM), Byrd (D-WV) and Reid (D-NV). Of course, from an authoritarian perspective, from which the government should intervene in both economic and personal matters, these three senators would be viewed as the very best!

House Rating Leaders
     In the House of Representatives, the highest combined score, 89, was achieved by McInnis (R-CO), followed by Souder (R-IN), 86, Scarborough (R-FL), 85, and by Chabot (R-OH), Inglis (R-SC), and Portman (R-OH), 84. On the economics component, there were two 100’s: Bass (R-NH) and Hoekstra (R-MI). Bass is the first repeat 100-scorer, having gotten a 100 on the economics component in 1995. There were also had six near misses, two due to wrong-votes on the space station, and one each to wrong-votes on dolphin-safe labeling, shipbuilder subsidies, defense spending and peanut price supports. The scattering of wrong votes resulting in near-misses verifies that, while many of the key votes in the economics area are tough, the votes are pretty much indicative of pro-free market sentiment.

Scoring Extremes
     There was one near miss for perfectly bad on the economics component. Rahal (D-WV) got only one vote right, and that one vote was a quirk. His one right vote was to oppose substituting the so-called “coalition” budget resolution for the Republican budget resolution. He opposed the substitution not because it would have authorized more spending than the Republican budget resolution (the presumed reason), but did because it did not contain enough spending.
     On the civil liberties component, we had three 80’s: McInnis, 84, and Ensign and Scarborough, 83. The lowest score, 18, was attained by Bryant (D-FL). And, by far the lowest score for a Republican, 21, was attained by Leach (R-IA). This low score was in addition to Leach’s inept chairmanship of the house banking committee.

Classification Scheme
     A few concluding comments regarding the RLC classification scheme are in order. From the vantage point of the RLC, it is difficult if not impossible to accurately label many politicians. On the one hand there are those who, more-or-less, fall on the new, authoritarian versus libertarian political spectrum, and with whom the two dimensional index does a relatively good job. But, on the other hand hand, there are politicians who appear to have no guiding compass to public policy, and who may be confused by echoes from the past liberal versus conservative spectrum, relative to the partisan tugs of the new authoritarian versus libertarian spectrum. In addition, certain politicians want particularly to appear to be “moderate” or “bi-partisan,” whatever these things are supposed to mean, and to undercut the political opposition by adopting their positions. Bill Clinton’s re-election team characterized such political cross-dressing as “triangulation.” And. while Clinton may be the undisputed master of it, the RLC index demonstrates that he is not the only practitioner of it.

Clifford F. Thies e-mail

Past Chairman, Republican Liberty Caucus
Professor of Economics and Finance
  at Shenandoah University