Heritage Action: Meadows top conservative for NC, Duncan on top for SC
Heritage Action has updated their conservatism rankings for the current session of Congress. There HAS been some shakeup in the North Carolina delegation. For the current 113th Congress (2013-2014) , Reps. Mark Meadows, George Holding and Robert Pittenger appear to be racking up the most conservative voting records in the delegation. Contrast that with the 112th (2011-2012), where Virginia Foxx, Patrick McHenry and Richard Burr were at the top of the rankings. (Foxx and McHenry are moving up in the leadership ranks in the House — so that probably explains the falling conservative rankings.)
Foxx fell from 1st place in the 112th Congress to 4th place in the 113th with a 77 percent ranking. McHenry fell from second place in the 112th Congress to 6th place in the 113th Congress. Burr dropped like a rock — from 77 percent in the 112th Congress to 58 percent in the 113th. Only Renee Ellmers and Howard Coble have more liberal rankings, among Republicans, than Burr does. 
In South Carolina, Reps. Jeff Duncan andTrey Gowdy and Senator Tim Scott are leading the pack in Heritage’s conservatism rankings. (Duncan was #2, behind only then-Senator Jim DeMint, in the 112th Congress rankings.)
back to the Tar Heel State. In the 112th Congress, Heritage rated Renee Ellmers as the most liberal Republican (58%) in the North Carolina delegation. In the current session, Ellmers drops to a 54% rating, but hands off the most liberal position to retiring Rep. Howard Coble.
In the Senate, North Carolina’s Richard Burr sits near the bottom of the state’s GOP caucus with a 58 percent rating. Democrat Kay Hagan comes in with a 4 percent ranking — confirming her position as the most liberal member of the state’s congressional delegation.
In South Carolina, Republican Tim Scott earns a ranking of 88 percent, while Lindsey Graham pulls a 51 percent ranking — making him more liberal than everybody in the state’s delegation except Rep. Jim Clyburn.
Meadows and Jones are the only two worth spit. When I see the other rankings from this group the only conclusion I can come to is that they are Rating RINOism, not conservatism. Those 2012 rankings say all you need to know about “Heritage Action for American”. They ARE a mouthpiece for the Neo Con Whoredom destroying the GOP and our way of life.
Pffft.
T Bennett
Robert Pittenger spoke out against defunding Obamacare. Then he voted to defund while putting out a press release praising that vote. He then voted to fund Obamacare and he went on to call the defund vote a sham vote after apparently forgetting his earlier press release praising that vote. Throw in his staff publicly attacking Ted Cruz, his past support for tolls in NC with all the corruption behind that, and now his new position on immigration where on his website he says he wants to give legal status to every “undocumented migrant” who wants to work here. We should feel great about our conservative champion Robert Pittenger.
I much prefer the New American Freedom Index. It has a very strict criteria for judging votes 1- Constitutionality, 2 – Limiting government, 3 – Costs to the taxpayer.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/freedomindex/index.php
Be sure to click on each name to get past session scores since the summary page shows only cumulative scores.
I’ve followed it for over 20 years in all it’s iterations and have found that it is a consistent gauge of how harmful or beneficial an elected official is.
Jones is by far the most constitutionally minded today with a 100% current session rating and a career rating of 78%. Holding is 2nd with 72%.
No elected official is perfect but when they score consistently above 70% in the New American index you can bet they are not exactly toting water for the party.
Most of the other indexes fall short by picking and choosing issues and votes. The New American Freedom Index uses the same votes to rate each member thus comparing apples to apples.
The problem with all these conservative rankings is that they only judge an elected official based on voting record. We have seen several cases where a member of congress will work to defeat a bill, only to realize that it’s going to pass and vote for it at the last sec just so their conservative ranking does not get hurt. Also politicians who may publicly support something like common core or amnesty will not see their score hurt if those issues are never taken up for a vote. An elected officials voting record only tells part of the story.
Right you are. It is difficult to track the pols who vote for or against a procedural measure and then opposite when the real bill comes to the floor. That’s a common practice so they can come home and tout their opposition or support depending on the crowd to which they are pandering. Safe votes are seen all the time when the leadership has sufficient votes, they’ll let some congressmen vote as needed to satisfy their constituents. It is very hard to track those kinds of deception. The best we can do is keep notes and find the indexes that are the better of the selections. No index is perfect but the best ones are usually the ones that make the pols squeal the loudest.
Often, and especially in the Senate, the procedural vote IS the key vote, because it takes a supermajority and is therefore the place that it is easier to stop legislation. Some Senators have a long history of voting wrong on the key vote and then right on the final vote just to fool their base, Lindsay Graham has done that for years and Richard ”Tricky Dick” Burr has picked it up over the last year or two.
No rating is perfect, but some are better than others as to picking up those nuances. The ACU rating used to be one of the best, but since they started appointing a lot of establishment people to their board, it is now one of the least reliable. Actually, two that I find better than most are Heritage Action and Club for Growth. Senate Conservatives Fund also does a good one.
Another problem is that some issues, like amnesty, are so incredibly important that giving them the same weight as lesser issues is just not right. Some ratings will double weight such issues, and some do not. Personally, I think amnesty should be quadruple weighted.
Most ratings cover a range of issues, and some elected officials may be good in one area and bad in another. I would like to see sub-categories, like a score on social issues, a score on tax and spend issues, a score on regulatory issues, etc.
Patrick McHenry and the new whip team has blamed Jeff Sessions for stopping Boehner’s fake border control bill. Pat is very squishy. He is open to a deal, even a sort of bad one.
McHenry with admitted RINOs Boehner and Adam Kinzinger are open to amnesty.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/01/republican_party_plots_immigration_reform_gop_wants_to_appear_reasonable.html
Steve King, David Vitter and Jeff Sessions are undermined by these ratings groups. The problem is they tak big hits on their pet projects: Farm Bill, Ethanol mandate and flood insurance.
These 3 are the only ones who really opposed amnesty from the start of 2013. Probably Tim Scott as well.
Said this before in another form and its still true….there are no NC conservative Republican Representatives IF they supported Boehner for Speaker. And they own everything Boehner does. Looking forward to Mark Walker winning in November and keeping his promise to vote for someone other than Boehner.
Walter Jones voted against Speaker Bonehead, and ended up with the establishment spending $1.4 million to try to defeat him in his primary after they parachuted a beltway lobbyist who had never lived in the district in to run against him. One of the ringleaders of that was Haley Barbour, the thug who orchestrated all the anti-conservative stuff in Mississippi.