Interest Group Ratings

[CARLHAYDEN]

A number of posters have tried to use interest group ratings to 'prove' such and such an elected public official is a 'conservative' (or a 'liberal').  While there frequently such ratings are valid, often they are NOT for a number of reasons:

First, hard as it may seem to believe, on some issues, both the American Conservative Union (conservative rating organization) and the Americans for Democratic Action (liberal rating organization) were in agreement (they both opposed Bush's Medicare Prescription Drug program).

Second, the votes on which they rated members were NOT the same votes (I'll examine the 2003 votes for an example) in most instances.

While both organizations included ratings for six roll call votes, the ACU had thirteen votes NOT included in the ADA ratings system, and the ADA had fourteen votes NOT included in the ACU ratings.

Third, Senators (and US Representatives) do NOT always vote on all matters rated (some deliberately skip votes which could get them in trouble).

In conclusion, in 2003, if a Senator skipped five votes jointly rated by both organizations, voted against Bush's Presription Drug program, he/she could vote the way the two organizations wanted on the remaining issues and get perfect ratings from both organizations.

One of the reasons that both organizations do NOT use exactly the same Roll Call votes for ratings is that they do NOT want to demoralize their supporters lest they be shown to be on the losing end of too many votes.

If you don't believe me, check out the ACU/ADA sites and you will see that the only ADA votes also rated by the ACU were votes 1,5,6,10,12,17 and 20 (and remember, they agreed on opposition to Bush's Presicription Drug policy, one of the issues they both rated).