Political
Spectrum Swings
We are now in the fourth year of
what, according to the neo-cons, was supposed to be “a walk in
the park” in Iraq. While we have accomplished some things in
that country, it has come at an enormous cost in terms of lives
and expenditure. At home, the war has resulted in continuing
high deficits that – together with unfunded Social Security
and Medicare liabilities – are beginning to threaten our
long-term fiscal solvency. Any potential we may have had, with
the President and both houses of Congress controlled by
Republicans, to address issues such as Social Security reform,
to overhaul our income tax system, to implement market-oriented
health insurance reform, or to advance parental choice in
education, have dissipated, with the focus of the President on
the war, and the scurrying about by Congressional Republicans
for earmarks and pork barrel spending at the behest of their
constituents and the D.C. lobbying community.
Shifting Political Axis
The negative dynamic set into
motion by the war is clearly evident in this year’s Liberty
Index of the U.S. Congress. Until recently, the political
spectrum in the country was shifting from left-right to up-down.
In terms of a two-dimensional analysis, Republicans had been
becoming better than Democrats on personal liberties issues as
well as economic liberties issues. To be sure, the superiority
demonstrated by the Republicans in personal liberties was modest
and uneven, but it was becoming possible to conceive of an
emerging libertarian-conservative policy agenda buttressed by
majority support among the electorate.
In the 2004
Index for the House of Representatives, I noticed that the
political spectrum had partially reverted to its former
left-right political spectrum, as Republicans lost whatever
advantage they had previously had in the personal liberties
dimension. This year, House Republicans
are shown to be clearly inferior on personal liberties, although
still better in economic liberties. In terms of the House of
Representatives, we are now back to left-right, liberal versus
conservative politics. On the one hand, you have Democrats with
proposals for even higher taxes and spending but with some
sensitivity to personal liberties; and, on the other hand, you
have Republicans with an increasingly nativist and police-state
orientation and only headed to fiscal disaster in second
gear.
In order to track the political
orientation of the Congress in two dimensions, each year I
carefully identify 20 votes covering economic issues such as
taxes and spending, regulations, free trade, labor policy and so
forth, for each chamber; and, another 20 votes covering personal
liberty issues such as freedom of speech, privacy, and the
rights of the accused, again for each chamber. That’s a total
of 80 votes.
Considering the number of votes involved, getting the mix of
votes to approximate the range of libertarian concerns, trying
to avoid spurious bias, and properly interpreting parliamentary
procedure (e.g., a motion to table an amendment to delete a
provision that prohibits the funding of a program), this is a
lot of work.
I am very grateful this year, as
in the past, for those in the RLC who help me with this work. I
need, this year, especially to thank Bill Westmiller and a
second person whom I cannot name. But, while they have assisted
me, I alone am responsible for the final decisions. My
selections do not necessarily represent the official
positions of the RLC.
Economic Liberties
In both the House and Senate, I
have assembled very comprehensive sets of 20 votes on economic
issues. These votes cover the overall budget, spending on
programs favored by a slew of special interests, and taxes. I
have votes on labor policy, such as outsourcing and
privatization, and on energy policy, such as opening ANWR. I
have votes on CAFTA, on expanding medical savings accounts and
on restraining the growth of Medicaid spending.
About the only potential problem
I have ever had with this part of the index is that of including
too many farm votes, which would have disproportionately
impacted legislators from the rural parts of the country, when
the farm bill came up for re-authorization a few years back.
While there were many “good” farm votes that year, I had to
make sure that the index wasn’t biased against rural
legislators by that year’s Congressional agenda, but was,
instead, representative of libertarian concerns.
Personal
Liberties
Turning to the personal
liberties component of the index, where I often have problems, I
think, in the Senate, I wound up with a set of votes that was
not very satisfactory. A consequence of this is that I will not
be emphasizing my results for the Senate in this report. I’ll
come back to this matter. But, with regard to the House of
Representatives, I am happy with the set of votes on personal
liberties. In this chamber, there were many votes on
personal liberty issues, including medical marijuana, the Flag
Desecration Constitutional Amendment, gun control, U.S.
involvement in the drug-related war in Columbia, and the
regulation of the internet. Other votes involve the
federalization of crime, the Patriot Act, and immigration
policy.
These votes, as a set, reflect
what I believe to be the “Republican Liberty” understanding
of personal liberty. For example, on the Shiavo vote, the
Congressional Republican leadership wanted a federal review of
Ms Shiavo’s family’s case. But, this matter had been duly
considered by state courts. I held to the principle that such
matters as were involved in this case, are to be decided by the
individual or his or her guardian where that person is unable to
decide, as can best be determined by state courts, with federal
courts intervening only if there is a federal concern. In this
case, the libertarian position, in my opinion, aligned with the
liberal position, but that was merely a coincidence.
For another example, on the bill
to make it a federal offense to transport a minor across a state
border to obtain an abortion without the consent of the parents
or guardians, I again applied the libertarian principle that
such matters are to be decided by the individual or his or her
guardian where that person is unable to decide. In such cases as
this, liberals would have parents be financially responsible for
older children who have not yet reached majority status, while
freeing those children from parental authority. This would not
only be unfair to parents, it would be inconsistent with
Liberty. Liberty is not the absence of restraints; rather, it is
that the decision-maker bears the consequences of his or her
decisions. In the exercise of guardianship, we must defer to the
family, and outsiders – no matter that they are close
outsiders – should just butt out. To be sure, the guardian’s
competence or love for the ward can be challenged in court; and,
individuals within families can or should be able to separate
themselves; e.g., precocious youth can or should be able to seek
early emancipation.
Thus, our “Republican Liberty”
position is truly pro-family and pro-freedom of association, as
well as pro-individual. In contrast, both liberals and
conservatives would intervene into our families and into our
associations whenever they feel something important is involved.
Indeed, we look at government as an association, having limited
and enumerated powers under a Constitution transferred by the
people to it, whereas liberals and conservatives look at
government as sovereign, and at individuals as having rights and
obligations as decided by it.
In recent years, Republican
concern for personal liberty has atrophied. As for the
possibility that Republicans will ever act on the President’s
now long-forgotten campaign promise to respect state initiatives
legalizing medical marijuana, that has been pushed aside by the
social conservatives within the Republican Party. Similarly, the
President’s effort to promote a rational and humane approach
to our country’s immigration situation has been pushed aside
by the rise of nativism within our party and the country
generally.
The Eminent Domain Vote
One vote that I included in the
personal liberties component of this year index, that some
people might suppose should belong in the economics component,
is the House vote on “takings” of private property for
private purposes, following the Supreme Court decision in the
Kelo case. Obviously, something is very wrong when five justices
of the Supreme Court think that a “public purpose” is
anything a city council says is a public purpose. Why do they
think we have a Constitution? It’s because we’re not a pure
democracy. It’s because we know we have to protect ourselves
from ourselves. That’s why we have such things as checks and
balances and staggered elections, and that’s why we have a
Supreme Court that is removed from politics.
It is because the Kelo decision
strikes so very deeply at the heart of our form of government,
that I included the House eminent domain vote in the personal
liberties component of the index.
Here is where I return to the
matter of the Senate and personal liberties. The way that our
federal legislature is arranged, the House acts like a barometer
of public opinion, reflecting “the will of the people.” At
present, the will of the people is not very pretty. Nationalism
is on the rise, and with it fear of immigrants, of Arabs, and of
the global economy. This is reflected in an increasingly
jingoistic legislative agenda in the House. The Senate, on the
other hand, is set-up in a way that, at least for a time, will
deflect the excesses of public opinion. Possibly as a result of
their different structures, the political orientation of the
House is changing and that in the Senate is not or is not yet
changing.
The Best and the Worst
In the House of Representatives,
the overall top score in this year’s index is 90, posted by
Congressman Jeff Flake
(R-AZ). Congressman Flake has been at or tied for the top spot
since he took office five years ago. Number 2 is Congressman Ron
Paul (R-TX), 82, who was my predecessor as National Chair of
the RLC, and who has been first or tied for first or second
since he returned to the U.S. Congress in 1997. Number 3 is
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher
(R-CA), 80, who was the winner of the first several RLC indexes
way back when, and has in recent years rebounded to the top of
the rankings. Other top scores were registered by Congressmen
Duncan (R-TN), Hensarling (R-TX), Shadegg (R-AZ), Otter (R-ID),
Feeney (R-FL), Royce (R-CA) and Garrett (R-NJ).
The lowest scorers in the House
were Congressman Livingston (D-RI), with a score of 24,
Congressmen Case (D-HI) and Miller (D-NC), and newly-appointed
Senator Menendez (D-NJ), with 26s.
The worst Republican in the
House was Congressman Higgins of New York, with an overall score
of 34 and the best Democrat was Congressman Jim Matheson of
Utah, with an overall score of 57.5.
Economic Liberty Ratings
In the area of economic
liberties, there were five perfect scores of 100 in the House;
Congressmen Flake (R-AZ), Hayworth (R-AZ), Hensarling (R-TX),
Pence (R-IN) and Shadegg (R-AZ). There was one “perfect”
score of zero; Congressman Hinchey (D-NY). His approach to
economics must be, as Ronald Reagan once said, “If it moves,
tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving,
subsidize it.”
There were 14 Congressmen who
got only one vote wrong, and 11 Congressmen who got only one
vote right. The vote that most frequently tripped-up Congressmen
was Roll Call 73, which was to defund a proposed billion dollar
Baghdad embassy. Five spendaholic Democrats voted to defund the
proposed Baghdad embassy. Perhaps they viewed this as an
anti-war vote, rather than as a spending vote. Two Republicans,
who normally scrutinize expenditures, found that they couldn’t
help themselves when it came to this boondoggle. Perhaps
analogously they viewed this as pro-war vote, rather than as a
spending vote.
Only two other votes that
tripped-up otherwise perfectly good or perfectly bad scores,
marred more than two scores. These were Roll Call 239, dealing
with the World Trade Organization, and Roll Call 235, dealing
with the Agricultural Marketing program.
Personal Liberty Ratings
In the area of
personal liberties, the highest score was registered by
Congressman Paul (R-TX), and the two lowest were registered by
Congressmen Kirk (R-IL) and King (R-NY). Notice that Republicans
were both at the top and at the bottom in the personal liberty
component of the 2005 index. This reflects the emerging cleavage
between libertarians and others within the Republican
Party.
Turning to the U.S. Senate, the
high scorers were Senators Trent Lott (R-MS), 90; James DeMint
(R-SC), 88; and Jon Kyl (R-AZ), 87. The lowest scorers were Mark
Dayton (D-MN), 11; and, Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Richard
Durbin (D-IL), each of whom got 12.
In the economics component
of the index, Senators Ensign (R-NV), Gregg (R-NH), Kyl (R-AZ)
and Lott (R-MS) registered perfect 100s; and, Senators Dayton
(D-MN), Durbin (D-IL), Kerry (D-MA) and Levin (D-MI) registered
“perfect” zeros.
In the personal liberties
component of the index, Senators Thomas (R-WY), 87; and, Bennett
(R-UT), 86; should be mentioned; as should Senators Mikulski
(D-MD), 22; and, Akaka (D-HI), 25.
Corruption and Reform
The possibility of a
libertarian-conservative policy agenda has been damaged by the
continuing war. Most obviously, continuing large deficits make
problematic extension of the temporary tax cuts. And, with huge
increases in spending, constituencies within the Republican
Party – e.g., farmers – figure why shouldn’t they get
their share. Combine these things with former Majority Leader
Tom De Lay’s old-style approach to politics, featuring special
interest spending, earmarks and lobbyists, and catering to the
social conservatives while ignoring the economic conservatives,
was it really a surprise to see political corruption on the
rise, in addition to seeing spending on the rise?
The election of Congressman John
Boehner (R-OH) as the new Majority Leader, who has never sought
an earmark, can be the start of a reversal of direction, away
from excessive spending, special interests and corruption, and
back toward economic and political reform. But, if this is mere
window-dressing, libertarians within the Republican Party will
be increasingly disheartened, our party's political coalition
will fray, and our electoral majority will be put at risk. After
four years of Operation Iraqi Freedom, it is time to focus on
Operation American Freedom.
Clifford F. Thies e-mail
Past Chairman, Republican Liberty Caucus
Professor of Economics and Finance, Shenandoah University
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