This year's Liberty Index contains a few surprises, such as a Republican being among the lowest scorers. But, in the main, the index confirmed the shift of the political spectrum observed in the prior two years' surveys. No longer can the political spectrum be described as "liberal" versus "conservative," where "liberal" implies a commitment to personal liberties and "conservative" a commitment to economic liberties, and where "libertarian," implying as it does a commitment to both personal and economic liberties, is off the political spectrum. Instead, because of the end of the cold war, as well as because of the continuing degradation of liberalism, the political spectrum has clearly shifted to "authoritarian," i.e., the Democratic Party, versus "libertarianism," which by default if nothing else means the Republican Party.
     This year, as in the past, I identified twenty votes from among the roll call votes conducted in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in both the personal and economic spheres. In the area of personal liberties, I included votes on gun control, rights of the accused, the drug war, and political reform. In the area of economic liberties, I included votes on price controls and other economic regulations, spending, taxes and the budget deficit, and industrial policy.

Rollcall Votes
     Among the more prominent votes of 1991 were votes: to establish racial quotas for capital punishment; following-up on one of President Bush's gaffes, to regulate credit card interest rates; to lower the Social Security tax and to re-establish a capital gains tax preference; and, to expand the federal death penalty to about fifty additional crimes.
     Sometimes, in order to define the libertarian position, I included two votes. For example, on the issue of abortion, I included both a vote to prohibit counseling and a vote to require parental notification. On particularly important issues, I often included several votes, such as one or more votes on amendments and/or substitutes, as well as the vote on the final bill.
     To minimize bias, I took some care to include a balance of votes; balancing votes on which the libertarian position coincided with the conservative position, against votes on which the libertarian position coincided with the liberal position. Similarly, I purposely included a number of votes in which the libertarian position differed from the Administration's position, such as on extending most favored nation status to the People's Republic of China, and on boondoggles such as the super collider, the space station, B-2 bomber and the MX missile.
     And, as in the past, I adjusted scores so that the average of both the Senate and the House of Representatives in each area would be about 50. Therefore, scores are only relative.

Rating Leaders
     Finishing at the top were Senator Robert C. Smith (Rep., N.H.) and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (Rep., Cal.). Although there were no perfect scores this year, there were three 90s. They were posted by Congressmen Rohrabacher, Hancock (Rep., Mo.) and Zimmer (Rep., N.J.), and were all in the area of economic liberties. It is also nice to see that two of our past winners, Congressmen Armey (Rep., Tx.) and Crane (Rep., Ill.), placed near the top again this year.
     Because there has been some misunderstanding on a couple issues, let me close by stating two things: First, while there is a clear difference between Republicans and Democrats in the economic liberties area; there isn't such a clear difference in the personal liberties area. Republicans tend to defend certain personal liberties (e.g., freedom of religion, freedom of association, the right to keep and bear arms), Democrats tend to defend other personal liberties (e.g., freedom of speech, the rights of the accused, the right of privacy). Libertarians defend all of these personal liberties, as well as certain "orphan" personal liberties, such as drug use and immigration.
     Second, there is obviously a different expectation for the level of libertarianism expected of someone operating within the political mainstream versus someone operating within a fringe party, whose purpose is "educational" rather than political success. It is for each person to decide, in the particular time and place they find themselves, and given the choices being made by others around them, whether they would be more effective operating within a major party or within a fringe party.

Clifford F. Thies e-mail

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