Reprinted from The Washington Times , 5am -- April 8, 1998
TOP POLITICAL STORY
Group says lawmakers on right moving left
By Donald Lambro
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Republican Congress has turned more liberal in its voting in the past year, especially in the Senate, a study by the American Conservative Union concluded.
"Conservative scores are down across the board in both the House and the Senate. The numbers don't lie," ACU President David A. Keene said yesterday at a news conference during which he released the organization's annual rating of each Congress member's voting record.
The grass-roots conservative group's finding is certain to exacerbate the disgruntlement and alienation being voiced by grass-roots conservative organizations that have become increasingly critical of the GOP Congressional leadership, Mr. Keene warned.
"Many conservative activists have complained that the GOP leadership, which owes its position to millions of grass-roots conservative activists all over this nation, has failed to implement a conservative agenda," he said. "The 1997 ACU vote rating demonstrates that they've got a point. Conservative scores are down across the board."
Among the issues House scorecards were based on were term limits, public housing and funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
Senate measurements resulted from votes on a chemical weapons treaty, deficit spending bans and inflation indexing, among others.
Mr. Keene said that an analysis of several dozen key votes taken last year showed that the average House Republican "has moved from a 90 in the last session of the 104th Congress to an 84 in the first session of the 105th Congress."
"So not only are there fewer Republican congressmen, but the ones who are there are voting less conservatively than they did previously," he said.
The ACU ratings showed there was an even more significant shift in the Senate. Despite a net gain of two GOP senators, "the average Senate Republican moved even further left than his House counterparts, from an average score of 88 in the 104th Congress to 78 last year."
While Democrats were generally given overwhelmingly liberal scores, House Democrats moved slightly toward the political center, with their scores rising from 13 to 20. Average Senate Democratic scores moved even further to the left, falling from 13 to 8.
Of the GOP's voting record in the two chambers, Mr. Keene said, "The Senate was the more troubling from a conservative perspective."
"What's troubling is the fact that the Republican majority in the Senate has moved decidedly to the left. Not in the coming together with the Democrats somewhere in the middle, but as the Republicans have moved to the left, the Democratic minority in the Senate has felt comfortable moving even further to the left," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's rating reflects the GOP shift, falling from a perfect 100 percent score in 1996 to a 72 rating last year. "That's a 28-point shift left in just one year. No wonder conservatives are complaining," Mr. Keene said.
Mr. Lott's counterpart in the House, Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, also saw his ACU rating fall -- from a 100 in 1996 to 88 last year.
Mr. Keene acknowledged that despite the lower ACU scores, "Congress today is more popular than it has ever been," with its job approval polls running in the mid-to upper-50s. "The question is what is that popularity good for?" he said.
He warned that the GOP's shift on key conservative issues and its election year strategy to consider relatively little major legislation this year in order to allow plenty of time to campaign could be a turnoff for the party's political base.
"Republicans need to motivate their base or they are going to be faced with lower voter turnout in November," he said.Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
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