This Index, like previous ones, is based on forty votes, twenty in each of two components:  economics and civil liberties.  In the area of economics, votes include the balanced budget amendment, property rights, foreign aid, defense spending, and the space station.  In the area of civil liberties, votes include the term limits constitutional amendment, school choice, campaign finance reform, minority set-asides, tobacco, and the Flag.
     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 forty to fifty points.  If anything, this difference is even larger than it was in the past.  Also as in the past, there was less of a difference between Republicans and Democrats on personal liberties.  However, here, the gap that was formerly small appears to have widened.  Democrats are increasingly the party of foreign intervensionism, quotas, extending the war on drugs to tobacco, and regulating political speech.  Even though 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 personal liberties seems to have made its way into the index.

Senate Rating Leaders

John Kyle

     In the Senate, Kyl (R-AZ) achieved the highest combined score, 87.  Kyl got a near perfect score of 95 in the economics component.  His one bad vote was on the space station, the multi-billion dollar boon-doggle that turns many otherwise rational people into trekkie-socialists.  Tied for the lowest overall score with 15 were Boxer (D-CA) and Akaka (D-HI).  These two comrades got zero’s in the economics component.  (By the way, does anybody know if “Akaka” is Hawaiin for “piece of sh**”?)

House Rating Leaders
     In the House of Representatives, the highest combined score ever, 98, was achieved by Ron Paul (R-TX).  Other very high combined scores, good enough to win in past years, were turned in by Shaddegg (R-AZ), 86, Hayworth (R-AZ) and Rohrabacher (R-CA), 85.  Dr. Paul got the only perfect 100 this year, in the economics component.  Hayworth, Rohrabacher, Royce (R-CA), Miller (R-FL) and Chabot (R-OH) finished with near-misses.  Three of the five were tripped-up by the B-2 Bomber, demonstrating once again that it is capable of penetrating even the most resolute defense.  The lowest combined score, 16, was achieved by Bishop (D-GA).  In addition, five Democrats got 20-out-of-20, or 19-out-of-19 votes wrong on the economics component.  Five would be enough to organize a party cell.

Ron Paul

     Dr. Paul scored the first ever near-miss on the personal liberties component.  It has always been difficult to calibrate this part of the index.  Few people inside-the-beltway think libertarian, and sometimes I have been forced to construct an artificial libertarian position from off-setting liberal and conservative votes.  This year, on the House side, I included a pro-life vote (no funding of organizations that perform abortions) and a pro-choice vote (no prohibition of privately-funded abortions in overseas military hospitals).  Dr. Paul, being pro-life, got dinged on the latter of these two votes.
     I should point out that, according to one pro-life index, Dr. Paul was wrong on a vote not included in the RLC index.  The message in these indexes is not that Dr. Paul isn’t libertarian or isn’t pro-life, but that statistics only indicate tendencies.

Major Rollcall Votes
     On the economics side, 1997 was the year of “The Budget Deal.” This was a compromise worked out between the Republican leadership and the Democratic administration that involved balancing the budget using CBO economic assumptions, moderate increases in spending, and a small cut in taxes.  While there is no denying that Clinton’s re-election is a reality with which we must contend, I considered the budget deal too controversial to include in the index.  Instead, I included preliminary votes, such as the vote to substitute the budget developed by the Conservative Action Team that included a larger cut in taxes.
     On the personal liberties side, I included several votes involving meddling in the internal affairs of other nations.  Perhaps the most egregious such vote was a resolution presented to the House of Representatives to suspend the rules and “condemn the violence” in the Republic of Congo (or, the country formerly known as Zaire).  Maybe those who voted for this resolution hadn’t yet seen the movie “Amistad,” and therefore didn’t know that people have a God-given right to overthrow tyrants.  Fortunately, this resolution required a two-thirds majority vote, which it failed to obtain.  (Having overthrown the tyrant Mobutu, we hope that the people of the Republic of Congo will be blessed with Liberty, and not merely find that they have replaced one tyrant with another.)
     Finally, as the author of the RLC Index, I have a special reason to be happy that Dr. Paul has returned to Congress:  his voting is an independent indicator of the libertarian position, and therefore substantiates my own judgment.  A few years ago, when the Libertarian Party used to publish an index, I could point to the high correlation between my work and theirs (even though we, being in the Republican Party, are not the same as they).  For some reason, they no longer publish an index.  Now, I can point to Dr. Paul’s voting record as verification.

Clifford F. Thies e-mail

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