2004

Left and Right
     Before getting into the specifics of the 2004 RLC Index, I would like to direct your attention to the big picture. In this year’s LiberGraph, we have plotted the scores of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Republicans are shown as blue dots, and Democrats as red dots. In the old “left – right” political spectrum, some politicians sought to defend our personal liberties; e.g., freedom of speech, and of association, and the rights of the accused. Other politicians sought to defend our economic liberties; e.g., to buy and sell in the marketplace, and to own and enjoy the use of property. In the “up – down” political spectrum that exhibited itself from 1998 to 2002, the same politicians who defended our property rights also defended our personal freedoms. Notice that the political spectrum, for 2003 and for 2004, has reverted back to something of a “left – right” orientation.
     Consider the traditional liberal concern for freedom of speech. Liberals, nowadays, advocate speech codes on college campuses, the regulation of political speech, and public-financing of news, entertainment and art. Consider the traditional liberal concern for equal rights. Liberals, nowadays, want quotas, set-asides and preferences. When you go into court, they don’t want justice to be blind, but want certain people to have “status.” To be sure, conservatives do not systematically embrace personal liberties. They look at us strange, for example, because we support state laws legalizing medical marijuana.
     We understand that conservatives do not share our principled support of liberty, and only support it on an ad hoc basis as, for example, a market-oriented economy is more productive than a socialistic one. We understand this, and accept the challenge of making liberty palatable to a sufficient number of our fellow citizens. 

Roll Call Votes
     To construct the two-dimensional index, I first identified a total of eighty roll call votes, twenty on economic liberty issues, and twenty on personal liberty issues for each of the two chambers of Congress. This step was aided by the roll call votes identified by Bill Westmiller’s semi-automatic preliminary index, constructed by him toward the end of last year, and by his insightful comments, suggestions and all-round good humor regarding my draft lists. In the end, I take responsibility for the four lists of roll call votes, and absolve the Republican Liberty Caucus, its officers, employees and assigns of any blame. 

     As in the past, identifying roll call votes concerning economic liberty was not a problem. With a super-abundance of roll call votes to select from, my main concern was developing two lists of votes that, roughly, spanned the overall subject. The resultant lists includes votes on the overall level of spending, as well as spending in a variety of specific areas, votes on taxes and economic regulations, and votes on energy, labor, trade and industrial policies. I was also able to include some easy and some tough votes, so as to distinguish among the better and the worse members of Congress.
     Also as in the past, identifying roll call votes concerning personal liberty posed some challenges. First of all, my choices are limited to what Congress actually votes on, and – in this component of my index – I often have some unevenness in the distribution of votes. In the list for the Senate, for example, I may be heavy on gun votes (even though I didn’t use all the gun votes I could’ve used), and light or completely void in a number of areas of potential concern. Second, because of limitations in my choices, I sometimes construct a “synthetic” libertarian position by combining a vote in the which the libertarian position is arguably coincident with the conservative position with another vote in which the libertarian position is arguably coincident with the liberal position.
     This year, I included such a synthetic libertarian position, in the list for the Senate. This synthetic libertarian position includes a “no” position on the development of bunker-busting nuclear weapons, and a “yes” position on missile defense. My thinking is that, other things equal, we would prefer the use of weapons with less collateral damage, as the “enemies” we face are not “the nations” with which we may go to war, but the individuals who have gained power in those nations. If you aren’t happy with this part of the list, bear in mind that I’m not either. 

     Other votes concerning personal liberties include freedom of association in the purchase of health insurance and in the formation of civil unions (we’re for freedom of association), expedited deportation, secret tribunals, and using the military to “close the borders” (we’re against such things), the drug war in Columbia and the drug war at home (we’re against almost all the wars in which our government is involved), and the prohibition of some speech and the subsidization of some other speech (we think the Congress should pass “no law” respecting freedom of speech, just like it says in the 1^st Amendment). I should also mention that, in the Senate, I included votes on the confirmation of two very fine judges. 

Top Scorers
     In the U.S. House of Representatives, the #1 and 2 members of Congress for 2004 were clearly Ron Paul of Texas and Jeff Flake of Arizona. Also scoring well were Bartlett of MD, Franks of AZ and Miller of FL. If you will look at the LiberGraph, you can easily identify the blue dot denoting Dr. Paul. It’s the one near the northeast corner of the diagram. It is awesome to think that Dr. Paul, my immediate predecessor as National Chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus, returned to the Republican Party and was elected to the U.S. Congress after running for President as a candidate of the Libertarian Party. In the history of the United States, only three people who have run for President as the candidate of one party were, subsequently, elected to Congress as the candidate of another party. And, what is really noteworthy about Dr. Paul, is that, last year, he ran unopposed. Our conservative brethren within the Republican Party might think that we libertarians are strange, yet Dr. Paul demonstrates that we align as well or better with the people of the country as they do.

Economic Votes
     On the Economics component of the index, we had two 100’s, Franks of AZ and Miller of FL. Five others got 95, viz., Flake of AZ, Hensarling of TX, Shadegg of AZ, Stearns of FL and Tancredo of CO. In three of these five cases, the Representative was tripped on the base closing vote. Also on the Economics component of the index, we had five 0’s, Butterfield of NC, Davis of IL, Frank of MA, and Oberstar and Sabo of MN. As The Godfather once said, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

Senate Rankings
     Turning to the upper chamber, the #1 Senator for 2004 was John Sununu of NH, followed closely by Saxby Chambliss of GA, and John Ensign of NV and Don Nickles of OK. Senator Nickles, who retired last year, has always scored well in our index, and several times was #1 in the Senate. 

     On the Economics component, we had five 100’s, including Zell Miller of GA and Rick Santorum of PA, as well as Chambliss of GA, Ensign of NV and Nickles of OK. Senator Miller, who also has retired, is a Democrat who all but switched to the Republican Party last year. We can’t help but notice how, liberated from the trappings of the Democratic Party, his score on the index rose to Libertarian. We also got three 0’s, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and the Democratic Party’s running mates of 2004, John Kerry and Jonathan Edwards (provided that you overlook the fact that they were so busy running for President and Vice President that they only voted a few times).

Clifford F. Thies e-mail

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